Music Education
Damian Hinds Excerpts(8 months, 1 week ago)
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The Minister for Schools (Damian Hinds)
I congratulate my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Northampton North (Sir Michael Ellis) on securing a debate on this important subject, and on what is an unusually well-attended Adjournment debate. I thank all his colleagues—all our colleagues—from Northamptonshire for being here. My right hon. and learned Friend is a former arts Minister, and I commend him on the great work he did in that role, including his very important work on public libraries as well as on music. I know that music is a subject very close to his heart, as it is to the hearts of so many of us in this place, including my own.
My right hon. and learned Friend mentioned my predecessor, my right hon. Friend the Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton (Nick Gibb). As our right hon. Friend has often said, studying and engaging with music is not a privilege, but a vital part of a broad and ambitious curriculum. All pupils should have access to an excellent music education and all the knowledge and joy it brings. This is why music is part of the national curriculum for all maintained schools from the age of five to 14, and why the Government expect that academies should teach music as part of their statutory requirement to promote pupils’ cultural development.
Music, like every subject, is generally funded by schools through their core budget. In the November 2022 autumn statement, we announced an additional £2 billion in each of 2023-24 and 2024-25, over and above the totals that had been announced at the 2021 spending review. In July 2023, we announced an additional £525 million this year to support schools with the teachers’ pay award, and £900 million in 2024-25. The Government have continued to provide additional funding, over and above school budgets, to enable children and young people to access high-quality music and arts education. From 2016 to 2022 we invested £714 million, and we are investing £115 million per year up to 2025. Altogether, since 2016, this sums to close to £1 billion for a diverse portfolio of organisations over those years.
That sum includes £79 million a year for music hubs, as was mentioned by my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Northampton North and by the hon. Member for Worsley and Eccles South (Barbara Keeley), who is no longer in her place. Hubs provide specialist music education services to around 87% of state-funded schools, and over £30 million a year goes to the music and dance scheme, which provides means-tested bursaries to over 2,000 young people showing the greatest potential in those art forms. It also includes a growing cohort of national youth music organisations, with new additions such as the National Open Youth Orchestra, which works with young disabled people, and UD, which runs programmes including Flames Collective, its flagship pre-vocational creative development programme. It was great to see Flames Collective perform with Raye at this year’s Brits. As part of the refreshed plan, the Government continue to invest £79 million a year in music hubs, as well as providing an additional £25 million of funding for musical instruments.
On the teachers’ pension scheme—the TPS, as it is commonly known—the Department for Education has secured £1.25 billion to support eligible settings with the increased employer contribution rate in financial year 2024-25. That will mean additional funding of £9.3 million for local authorities for centrally employed teachers, including those employed in local authority-based music hubs. The Department has published the details of the additional funding for mainstream schools, high needs and local authorities with centrally employed teachers. I can also confirm that the Department is committed to providing funding to cover the increase in employer contribution rates for existing non-local authority hubs for the current academic year—that is, until August 2024—and officials are working to agree the precise amount. Further details, including funding rates and allocations, will be provided soon.
My right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Northampton North will know there is a music hubs competition in progress. Following its conclusion, which is due to be announced next month, the Department will work with Arts Council England to set final grant allocations for the newly competed hub lead organisations that will take over from September. As part of that work, due consideration will be given to additional pension pressures due to the increase in employer contributions through the TPS.
We know that, while potential is equally spread throughout the country, opportunity is not. As part of levelling up, our plan is to provide an additional £2 million of funding to support the delivery of a music progression programme. This programme will support up to 1,000 disadvantaged pupils to learn how to play an instrument or sing to a high standard over a sustained period. Further details about the programme will be announced in the coming weeks, once a national delivery partner has been appointed.
We know that many schools across the country deliver first-rate music lessons to pupils and offer high-quality extracurricular activities as well. However, we are also aware that there are some areas where music provision may be more limited, and to address this a refreshed national plan for music education was published in June 2022. That plan clearly sets out the ambition of the Government up to 2030 that every child, regardless of circumstance, needs or geography, should have access to a high-quality music education—to learn to sing, play an instrument and create music together and have the opportunity to progress their musical interests and talents.
Mr Hollobone
I thank the Minister for his response so far. Encouragingly, he is moving in the right direction. Does he recognise that Northamptonshire Music and Performing Arts Trust has warmly embraced the publication of the Government national plan for music education, the title of which is “The power of music to change lives”? Is the Minister impressed by the reach of NMPAT to over 53,000 children across Northamptonshire and Rutland? Not many music hubs have that scale of reach.
Damian Hinds
I echo my hon. Friend’s words about the power of music, and I join him in paying tribute to the great work of NMPAT. I do not have the statistics at my fingertips to assess where in the table, as it were, those thousands place it relative to others, but it certainly is a very impressive reach.
The expectations set out in the plan, starting from early years, are unashamedly ambitious, and informed by the excellent practice demonstrated by so many schools, music hubs and music charities around the country. As highlighted in the Ofsted “music subject” report published late last year, we know some schools do not allocate sufficient curriculum time to music. Starting this school year, schools are now expected to teach music lessons for at least one hour each week of the school year for key stages 1 to 3 alongside providing extracurricular opportunities to learn an instrument and sing, and opportunities to play and sing together in ensembles and choirs. We are monitoring lesson times to ensure that that improves.
Another weakness in some schools that was highlighted in the Ofsted report was the quality of the curriculum, in which there was insufficient focus on musical understanding and sequencing and progression. To support schools to develop a high-quality curriculum we published a model music curriculum in 2021, and, based on a survey of schools from last March, we understand that around 59% of primary schools and 43% of secondary schools are now implementing that non-statutory guidance. We want to go further in supporting schools with the music curriculum, which is why we published a series of case studies alongside the plan to highlight a variety of approaches to delivering music education as part of the curriculum. We are also working with Oak National Academy, which published its key stage 3 and 4 music curriculum sequence and exemplar lesson materials late last year, with the full suite of resources to follow in the summer.
While the refreshed plan rightly focuses on the place of music education in schools, it also recognises that music hubs have a vital role in supporting schools and ensuring that young people can access opportunities that schools on their own might not be able to offer. I join colleagues in paying tribute to the work of our music hubs across the country, including the organisations who lead them and their partners, who for the past 12 years have worked tirelessly to support music education.
One such organisation is of course the Northamptonshire Music and Performing Arts Trust, which I was pleased to hear my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Northampton North speak of in such glowing terms. I join him in thanking its chief executive, Peter Smalley, who I gather might be with us today. Just last week I had the privilege of seeing the work of another music hub in Surrey. I was very impressed by all that its partnership is doing to support schools to provide high-quality music and offer amazing opportunities to young people also beyond the classroom.
This year, hubs have continued their excellent work against the backdrop of a re-competition of the lead organisations led by Arts Council England. I recognise that that will not have been easy. As no announcement of which organisations will be leading the new hubs has yet been made, Members will understand that I cannot comment on the individual circumstances of any organisation currently in receipt of hub funding.
From September a new network of 43 hubs made up of hundreds of organisations working in close partnership will continue to build on the outstanding legacy of the hubs to date, and I offer my wholehearted thanks to everyone who has played a part in the music hub story so far. It will be exciting to see how the new hub partnerships develop and flourish with the support of the announced centres of excellence, once they are in place.
One area where hubs provide support to schools is in helping them to develop strong music development plans. This year we have invited every school to have a plan that considers how they and their hub will work together to improve the quality of music education. Our sample survey of school leaders last March showed that slightly under half of schools already had a music development plan in place. Of those, the vast majority—nine in 10—of school leaders intended to review it for this school year. Of those without a plan, nearly half reported intending to put one in place this school year. I hope it will not be long before every school has a strong music development plan that sets out how the vision of the national plan is being realised for their pupils.
The quality of teaching remains the single most important factor in improving outcomes for children, especially those from disadvantaged backgrounds. We plan to update our teacher recruitment and retention strategy and build on our reforms to ensure that every child has an excellent teacher, and that includes those teaching music. Our strategy update will reflect on our progress on delivering our reforms, as well as setting out priorities for the years ahead. For those starting initial teacher training in music in academic year 2024-25, we are offering tax-free bursaries of £10,000. That should help attract more music teachers into the profession and support schools in delivering at least one hour of music lessons a week. The Government will also be placing a stronger emphasis on teacher development as part of the music hub programme in the future, including peer-to-peer support through new lead schools in every hub.
There is fantastic music education taking place across the country. Indeed, the opening remarks of my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Northampton North did a better job at bringing that to life than I ever could. For my part, I offer and add my thanks to every music teacher in every setting for all that they do, but there is still a lot to do to make our vision for music education become a reality for every child in every school. I am confident, however, that our reforms are having an impact and will lead to concrete action that every school and trust can take to improve their music education provision. Through partnership and collaboration with hub partners, we will ensure that all young people and children can have access to a high-quality music education.
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)
Following this excellent debate, I am going to go to a reception sponsored by Mr Speaker with the London Philharmonic Orchestra. It struck me that we have all the orchestras, sinfoniettas, musical theatre and musicians generally—all these incredible talents—and I wonder how many of them started their lifelong love affair with music by picking up a musical instrument in school. We are so fortunate.
Question put and agreed to.
Tutoring Provision
Damian Hinds Excerpts(8 months, 1 week ago)
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Catherine McKinnell (Newcastle upon Tyne North) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair, Mrs Cummins. I thank the hon. Member for Twickenham (Munira Wilson) for bringing forward this debate on tutoring provision, and all hon. Members who have spoken very passionately on behalf of the children, families and school communities they represent here in Parliament.
I think we all agree that the scale of the challenge that many of our children and young people are currently facing is immense. We know that children and families have really struggled with the combined impact of years of reduced investment in our public services, compounded by the impact of the pandemic. Indeed, the attainment gap between disadvantaged pupils and their peers, which many have mentioned, has widened across all educational phases since 2019, so any limited progress made in the decade before was wiped out in a couple of years. The hon. Member for Twickenham also highlighted that issue.
We know that what happens outside the school gates reinforces the impact of what happens inside them. With the rising levels of child poverty, the cuts to youth services in communities and the dwindling support for children with additional needs, schools are increasingly becoming the frontline, with teachers having to buy food with their own money and wash clothes for families, and the increasing challenge of mental health issues.
It has now been four years since the enormous disruption and lost learning experienced by so many children began during covid. What was most concerning at that time was the lack of planning for children and for the inevitable impacts: no plan for learning from home in the early days; no plan for ensuring that all children had the equipment they needed; no plan for schools, teachers, or how to support children afterwards. So when the classrooms finally reopened after covid, it was not surprising to anyone that children found it hard to adjust. They had had little socialisation or interaction, and some had received barely any education at all.
I saw the impact on my own children. My youngest had only just started school when he found himself back at home being taught by two parents who had no teaching experience, two other children to try to teach and support, and two full-time jobs that they had to undertake from home. It was an incredibly challenging time for families everywhere, and in far too many households, particularly where less support was available, children paid a very heavy price. Kevan Collins was therefore commissioned by the Government to set out a long-term recovery plan for our children, but the Prime Minister, who was then Chancellor, opted out: he was simply not willing to make that investment in other people’s children. Our country continues to pay a very heavy price for the decision he took then, and it will for some time to come.
The National Audit Office reported last year:
“Disruption to schooling during the COVID-19 pandemic led to lost learning for many pupils, particularly disadvantaged children.”
It also reported:
“Left unaddressed, lost learning may lead to increased disadvantage and significant missing future earnings for those affected.”
As a key measure to address that, the Government introduced the national tutoring programme, which was initially provided through tuition partners. As hon. Members have noted, there were many missteps, from a very low uptake at the start to schools struggling to find the tutors they needed to deliver the support, but as the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent North (Jonathan Gullis) highlighted, once the Government introduced the school-led tutoring element in September 2021, there was some success and take-up was higher.
Evidence gathered by the National Foundation for Educational Research showed that increasing the number of tuition hours
“led to better outcomes in maths and English.”
Crucially, however, the foundation noted:
“Less than half of pupils selected for tutoring were from disadvantaged backgrounds.”
As the match-funding requirements kicked in and Government funding went from 75% to 50%, schools that were trying to make the scheme work and that needed it the most found it ever more difficult to deliver. This year, many schools, especially those in the poorest areas, have used up almost all of their pupil premium and recovery premium funding to pay for tutors, leaving them little to pay for other interventions such as enrichment or training. Indeed, the benefits of the scheme risked being undermined by the way it was delivered because it was poorly targeted, so lots of children who needed the support the most were not able to benefit from it.
Tutoring was not mentioned in the Budget earlier this month, so it seems that the national tutoring programme is coming to an end. Just a few months ago, the then Schools Minister, the right hon. Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton (Nick Gibb), stated:
“The Department has committed that, from the 2023/24 academic year, tutoring will have been embedded across schools in England.”
However, without a specific budget for tuition, it is assumed that schools will need to use their main budgets to fund that support.
Catherine McKinnell
I will just finish my point.
As I was saying, it is assumed that schools will need to use their main budgets to fund tuition support, absorbing the costs into what is already a shrinking pot. It would therefore be helpful if the Minister set out the Government’s vision of the national tutoring programme in the future. I was going to ask if he could do so in his response to this debate, but he is welcome to make an intervention now.
Damian Hinds
I will speak in a moment. I just wondered whether the hon. Lady is committing, in the event of her party coming into government, to having a separate line item for the tutoring programme over and above core school budgets.
Catherine McKinnell
The question that I am putting to the Government is how they envisage the future of the national tutoring programme. I would be grateful if the Government set out their vision. I will respond to the right hon. Gentleman’s point, as I deal with it in my speech—
Damian Hinds
It will not be long until there is a general election. We do not know exactly when, but there will be a general election at some point in the months to come. If the hon. Lady is saying that she thinks the Government’s course of action is a mistake, I am interested in hearing the alternative that she is setting out.
The Minister for Schools (Damian Hinds)
It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair, Mrs Cummins. I thank the hon. Member for Twickenham (Munira Wilson) for securing this important debate today. I also thank everybody who has taken part: the hon. Member herself, my hon. Friend the Member for Sedgefield (Paul Howell), the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon), who brought the Northern Ireland perspective, my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent North (Jonathan Gullis) and the hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne North (Catherine McKinnell), who spoke for the Opposition.
The hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne North rightly spoke of the hard times of covid, which we all remember. Our home and professional experiences were indeed very difficult. They were also very difficult to plan for, because they were experiences that our country, like others, had not had before. I do not think it is right to say that people were slow to react. For example, I thought that what happened in respect of Oak National Academy was amazing and came together quickly. The work that teachers and headteachers did converting to virtual education and enabling home learning was remarkable, but there is no doubt that it was an incredibly hard time. International studies such as the programme for international student assessment show that the whole world, with the exception of only one or two jurisdictions, took a really big knock from covid. Almost every country took a serious hit in educational attainment from covid.
England held up relatively well. That is part of the reason why in the most recent PISA results, in mathematics for example, England was ranked 11th in the world. That is an improvement on recent times, particularly so if one looks back to the period before 2010 when England had been ranked 27th. We also saw improvements in reading and in science. In the progress in international reading literacy study 2021, primary school readers in England were ranked fourth in the world and first in the western world. However, none of that changes the fact that covid was a terrible knock to education here and elsewhere in the world.
Munira Wilson
The Minister and his colleagues talk a lot about the PISA scores, and obviously we cannot deny that evidence. He talked about the impact of the pandemic, but does he recognise that the attainment gap had been starting to dwindle? I noticed that he smarted when I mentioned that the pupil premium was a Liberal Democrat commitment that we delivered with the Conservatives in government.
Munira Wilson
Sorry, I was not wishing to make a political point. My question is: will the Minister recognise that the attainment gap was actually starting to widen again before the pandemic, and that the pandemic accelerated that trend? That is what we are all here to try to tackle through the tutoring programme.
Damian Hinds
Let us not pursue the thing about the pupil premium. That happened to be in both the Conservative and Liberal Democrat plans for Government ahead of 2010. The two parties worked well together in coalition, and that is a good thing that we should welcome. There had been progress on the disadvantage gap. It is also true, as I was just saying, that covid hit the whole world, but it also hit different groups of children differentially, and we are still seeing the effects of that in the disadvantage gap. I will come back to that.
Tutoring has been a key part of our recovery plan, and I thank everybody who has been involved in it: the tutors, the tutoring organisations, the teachers and teaching assistants, and everybody else who has made it possible. My hon. Friend the Member for Sedgefield mentioned the particular role and contribution of volunteers, and I join him in that. It is a very special thing to do.
The national tutoring programme is not necessarily what always comes to mind when the person in the street thinks of tutoring. A lot of it, as the hon. Member for Twickenham alluded to, is small group work; it is not just one to one. Although very important work has been done by outside tutoring organisations, most of the work on the national tutoring programme has been done by existing staff in schools. We have committed £1.4 billion to the four-year life of the national tutoring programme in schools and colleges, and invested in the 16 to 19 tuition fund.
For the second year of the programme—my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent North referred to this—funding has gone directly to schools. That has enabled schools to choose the right approach for them and their children through the use of their own staff, accessing quality-assured tuition partners or employing an academic mentor. We created the find a tuition partner service to put schools in touch with those opportunities, and also provided training through the Education Development Trust for staff, including teaching assistants who deliver tutoring.
Nearly 5 million courses have been started since the NTP launched in November 2020, and 46% of the pupils tutored last year had been eligible for free school meals in the past six years. That is the “ever 6” measure—a measure of disadvantage. The 16 to 19 tuition fund will also have delivered hundreds of thousands of courses.
The tutoring programme has been part of the wider £5 billion education recovery funding, which is made up of the £1.4 billion for tutoring, £400 million for aspects of teacher training, £800 million for additional time in 16 to 19, and nearly £2 billion directly to schools for evidence-based interventions appropriate to pupils’ needs.
The hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne North rightly mentioned speech and language interventions. I can tell her that already two thirds of primary schools have benefited—211,000 year R children so far—from our investment in the Nuffield early language intervention programme. The evidence suggests that the programme assists children in making four months’ worth of additional progress, while children eligible for free school meals make greater progress of seven months.
Covid hit the world, including us. It did not hit every discipline in exactly the same way. Some of us will recognise from our own time at home with children that some things were easier to do than others. Reading at key stage 2 and junior school held up pretty well during covid. Maths has now improved and the standard is now close to what it was in the years before covid. Writing is still behind, although we have had a 2% improvement since last year.
Big challenges remain. No one denies that the No. 1 issue is attendance. This almost sounds trite, but there is an obvious link between being at school and the attainment achieved. It bears repeating that even if there are difficulties in having many children in school, we really have to work on attendance. As well as the overall attainment effect of attendance, there is a differential factor between the cohort of pupils as a whole and disadvantaged pupils; in other words, there is a bit more absence in the latter group than the former. There is also a link—some studies say it plays a really big part—between attendance and the attainment gap, which makes it doubly important that we work on attendance.
As colleagues know, schools are doing many things brilliantly, as are local authorities and others, to try to get attendance back up to pre-covid levels. Obviously, every child needs to be off school at some time because of sickness—all of us were when we were children. That will always be true, but we need to get back to the levels we had before covid.
The hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne North alluded to specific things that we do around breakfast clubs. It is important to do them in a targeted way, and not just in primary school, as the Labour party plans to do, but in secondary school as well. There are issues around mental health support, which is why we are gradually rolling out the mental health support teams across the country. Again, we think that it is right to have that in both phases—it is important at both primary and secondary school—and schools are also doing an immense amount of work.
Although the national tutoring programme was always a time-limited programme post-covid, tutoring will continue to play an important role and we know that the evidence shows that tutoring is an effective, targeted approach to increase pupils’ attainment. Headteachers are best placed to decide how to invest their funding, depending on their particular circumstances and priorities, and that approach underpins our whole approach to the school system, in that we put headteachers in charge. I anticipate many schools continuing to make tutoring opportunities available to their pupils and we will continue to support schools to deliver tutoring in future, including through pupil premium funding, which will rise to more than £2.9 billion in 2024-25.
Schools decide how to use their funding, aided by the Education Endowment Foundation, which sets out good knowledge and advice on the best uses of funding for the education programmes with the most efficacy. I do not think there is a conflict between universal and highly targeted programmes. We target via the funding formula and then headteachers are best placed, armed with the knowledge from the EEF and others, to decide how to use that funding. The overall national funding formula has the disadvantage element, which next year will be a bigger proportion than has previously been the case. Then, of course, there is the pupil premium.
Jonathan Gullis
I have outlined in detail why I think schools need the additional funding due to the financial pressures they are under. However, if the Government are not seeking to do that—which, personally, I think is a mistake—is the Department for Education planning to somehow monitor how many schools continue to deliver tutoring and the percentage of disadvantaged pupils? Or is the Department simply not going to keep an eye on the ball after the funding ends and rely on headteachers, who will, as the Minister has rightly said, do things in the best interests of their pupils? Ultimately, that will leave us in this place with less knowledge about the spending decisions and whether the support is continuing and embedded, which was the aim of the programme when initially introduced.
Damian Hinds
It is absolutely appropriate to embed tutoring into schools’ wider progress, because we know from our gold standard analyser the EEF and other studies that that approach has efficacy and achieves results, although obviously it depends on how it is done. As my hon. Friend puts it, we will keep an eye on the matter, but that is not the same as specifying that Mrs Smith the headteacher should do this but not that. We think Mrs Smith should be able to decide. We also have Ofsted inspections and the results are published as part of a system that is transparent but that also empowers schools, school leaders and trusts to make those decisions.
Munira Wilson
I completely agree with the Minister about giving headteachers and teachers autonomy. As a Liberal, I do not believe in things being controlled from the centre, and teachers know best, but the reality of the funding situation, as the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent North (Jonathan Gullis) pointed out, is that many schools are setting deficit budgets for the first time ever. We can talk about how money has gone up in cash terms, but it has not gone up in real terms. The Institute for Fiscal Studies has said that schools’ spending power has been reduced massively by inflationary costs.
I pointed out that the pupil premium has been cut by 14% in real terms. The tutoring fund underspent because many of the schools cannot match the funding that is available. The Minister may really believe that this is an effective, evidence-based intervention, but schools will not be able to continue without ringfenced, dedicated funding. I was told that last year when I went to visit Southwark College, which is dealing with some of the most disadvantaged pupils, who otherwise will have no life chances at all if they do not get the support they need.
Damian Hinds
On the subject of funding, including the pupil premium and the recently announced additional amounts for covering pension contributions, overall school funding next year will be £2.9 billion higher than it was in 2023-24. That will take the total to over £60 billion in 2024-25—the highest ever level in real terms per pupil.
We also remain committed to improving outcomes for students aged 16 to 19, particularly those yet to achieve their GCSE English and maths. That is a subject that came up earlier. I should stress that not having English and maths is not an impediment to starting an apprenticeship; the person just has to continue to study them while doing their apprenticeship.
I know that this subject stirs strong feelings in many people. We know that the workplace and life value of English and maths is immense, and that is why there is so much focus on those subjects as we develop the advanced British standard and in our design of the T-levels and some of the apprenticeship reforms. English and maths are so important for the futures of these young people, which is why in October we announced an additional £300 million over two years to support students who need to resit their GCSEs.
There is no rule that everybody has to resit a GCSE. Whether the person resits GCSE mathematics or takes a functional skills qualification depends on the GCSE grade that they got the first time around. The £300 million is part of what we call an initial downpayment on the development of the advanced British standard. As colleagues know, it will be a new baccalaureate-style qualification, bringing together the best of A-levels and T-levels in a single qualification and ending the artificial distinction between academic and vocational for good.
I am grateful to the hon. Member for Twickenham for securing this debate, and to everybody who has been and continues to be involved in the national tutoring programme and the 16 to 19 programme. Tutoring can have a transformational effect on pupils’ and students’ attainment, and I am proud that the Department’s flagship tutoring programmes have been supporting so many in catch-up following covid-19. I thank everyone who has taken part in this debate, all the schools and colleges that have participated in these programmes, all the tutors—including the volunteer tutors—who have delivered them, and of course all the pupils and students for engaging so enthusiastically.
Relationships Education: LGBT Content
Damian Hinds Excerpts(8 months, 1 week ago)
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The Minister for Schools (Damian Hinds)
It is a great pleasure to see you in the Chair, Mr Dowd—in my case, for the first time—and a pleasure to be here for this well-attended debate in Westminster Hall. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Carshalton and Wallington (Elliot Colburn) for opening the petition debate on whether lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender content should be included in relationships education in primary schools. I also thank the petitioners involved in the two petitions.
The subjects are, as my hon. Friend the Member for Gravesham (Adam Holloway) said, sensitive. We have heard different perspectives and had a passionate but respectful and reflective debate informed by constituency experiences and, in multiple cases, colleagues’ own personal experiences, which they have shared today. I thank everyone who has taken part: my hon. Friends the Members for Carshalton and Wallington, for Gravesham, for Darlington (Peter Gibson), and for Don Valley (Nick Fletcher); the hon. Members for Rotherham (Sarah Champion), and for Brighton, Kemptown (Lloyd Russell-Moyle); the right hon. Member for Exeter (Mr Bradshaw); and the Opposition spokesperson, the hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne North (Catherine McKinnell). I also thank those who took part through interventions.
When we brought in the relationships, sex and health education statutory guidance from September 2020, it was the first update to that guidance for 19 years. In the intervening period, a lot had changed. A lot had changed in our society, and the law had changed in important ways. Technology and new media had changed, and continues to change, both what happens in our society and what our children are exposed to in ways that continue to develop.
It is essential to support all pupils to have the knowledge they need to lead happy, safe and healthy lives, and that they are able to understand and respect difference in others. That is not just my view. It also comes from extensive engagement with teachers, parents and others: we issued a call for evidence and a consultation on RSHE back in 2018. Colleagues across the House have repeated it, including my hon. Friend the Member for Darlington who did so rather powerfully.
High-quality, evidence-based and age-appropriate teaching of RSHE can help to achieve exactly what I have just set out. It can prepare pupils for the opportunities and the responsibilities of adult life, and it can promote pupils’ spiritual, moral, social, cultural, mental and physical development. In that context, we want all children to understand the importance of respect for relationships and the different types of loving and healthy relationships that exist in our society.
In primary schools, age-appropriate relationships education involves supporting children to learn about what healthy relationships are; about mutual respect, trustworthiness, loyalty, kindness, and generosity; as well as, crucially, keeping safe both online and offline. That then provides the basis for relationships and sex education at secondary school, where pupils are taught the facts around sex, sexual health and sexuality, set firmly within the context of relationships.
We do need to strike the right balance. We do not want teaching inadvertently to fast-track children into engaging in, or exploring, adult activities, rather than enjoying childhood and being children. To teach young people about same-sex relationships does not mean teaching children in primary schools about sex.
It should focus on teaching children that society consists of a diverse range of people, that families come in many shapes and sizes, and that it is all right to be different. Some children in the classroom may, of course, have lesbian, gay or transgender family members and will rightly want to feel included in lessons about positive, healthy and trusting relationships.
Crucially, if this content is not covered in the classroom, it does not mean that children are not going to come into contact with it. Most frequently, they will either turn to their peers—in fact, they do not even have to turn to their peers; they will get it from them anyway—or to the internet. My hon. Friend the Member for Carshalton and Wallington reiterated the fact that, as we all know, that can be a dangerous and distorted place. The RSHE statutory guidance is clear that it is for schools to decide at what point in their pupils’ education it is appropriate to cover content related to LGBT—
Dame Andrea Jenkyns
Eighteen months ago, when I was very briefly in the DFE, I raised with civil servants my concern over constituents not being able to see the actual materials and being shown a summary only. I was reassured then that all schools would be emailed to say that materials must be shown to parents if requested. It was not done while I was there. Can the Minister confirm whether it has been done since?
Damian Hinds
It has, and later in my remarks I will come on to this very matter. As I was saying, the statutory guidance is clear that it is for schools to decide the point in their pupils’ education at which it is appropriate to cover matters related to LGBT.
Sarah Champion
I thank the Minister for his speech, and for all the work that he has done in this area. However, there is something that I have found increasingly frustrating. All schools were meant to have the necessary training by September 2021. I think that what we are hearing today are concerns that some teachers are not equipped, so they may be drawing on their personal experiences. Without giving every teacher the training, the Minister is leaving them somewhat exposed.
Damian Hinds
I recognise that there are questions around training. In truth, it is also the case that we cannot just say, “If only there was more training then none of these issues would arise.” That is just not the case. It is something that one looks at, and I recognise the issue, and the related issues around materials and their quality. I will touch on both of those later.
The RHSE statutory guidance is clear that it is for schools to decide the point in their pupils’ education at which it is appropriate to cover matters related to LGBT. That means that primary schools have discretion over whether to discuss sexual orientation or families that have same-sex parents. Earlier, the hon. Member for Rotherham outlined what the statutory guidance says. When we talk about LGBT in primary schools it is in the context of relationships and, in particular, families. The statutory guidance says:
“Families of many forms provide a nurturing environment for children. (Families can include for example, single parent families, LGBT parents, families headed by grandparents, adoptive parents, foster parents/carers amongst other structures.)”
There is no statutory content on LGBT in the primary curriculum tables.
Similarly, it is for primary schools to decide whether to teach any sex education. The RHSE guidance does not provide a definition of what relationships and sex education should include, but it is clear that it should be
“tailored to the age and the physical and emotional maturity of the pupils. It should ensure that both boys and girls are prepared for the changes that adolescence brings”.
Primary schools that do teach sex education must set out the details of what they will teach in their relationships and sex education policy, on which they must consult in advance with parents.
Secondary schools should provide an equal opportunity to explore the features of stable and healthy same-sex relationships, and ensure the content is integrated throughout the relationships and sex education curriculum. We trust our teachers to deliver this content in a suitable and age-appropriate way, respecting the beliefs and values of all pupils in the school. Our guidance says that schools are free to determine how they cover LGBT-related contented, and
“we expect all pupils to have been taught LGBT content at a timely point as part of this area of the curriculum.”
The majority of teachers do that well, and adapt to the circumstances of their pupils.
Some people may feel that covering LGBT matters contradicts tenets of their faith. I am conscious that religious faith is itself a protected characteristic. However, schools with a religious character can teach the distinctive faith perspective on relationships, and pupils should be able to have a balanced debate about issues that are contentious. A good understanding of pupils’ faith backgrounds and positive relationships between the school and local faith communities help to create a constructive context for the teaching of those subjects. Religions teach tolerance and respect, and those subjects are designed to help children from all backgrounds and faiths build positive and safe relationships.
We worked closely with the Catholic Education Service, the Church of England, the Board of Deputies of British Jews, and the Association of Muslim Schools on the support for implementing the curriculum. I know that some of those organisations develop their own materials that align the new curriculum with their faith prospectus. There is no reason why teaching children about the society that we live in, and the different types of loving, healthy relationships that exist, cannot be done in a way that respects everyone.
I also know that some parents are frustrated that they cannot withdraw their children from relationships education, as opposed to sex education; that came up earlier in a contribution from my hon. Friend the Member for Don Valley. They believe that the boundaries can be blurred with sex education, from which there is a right for a child to be withdrawn, and I recognise those sensitivities.
I also recognise that parents are the first educators of their children and may want to withdraw their child from lessons so that they can first discuss some topics with them outside school. All pupils should be taught about caring friendships and respectful relationships, and they need to understand how to keep themselves and others safe and what to do when they feel unsafe. It is important that parents know what their child will be taught in advance of it being delivered in the classroom, which is why there is a requirement on schools to publish their relationships, or relationships and sex, education policy. Schools must consult parents as they develop and renew that policy.
There has been concern, which has come up again today, over the materials that some organisations have prepared to teach relationships and sex education in schools. It is for schools to make decisions about what materials to use, and it is their responsibility to ensure that what is taught is safe and age-appropriate. For clarity, it is worth reiterating that it has long been the case in our school system that schools decide what materials they use for everything. We do not have a top-down system where some mandarin decides, “This is the textbook for such and such a subject,” and everybody learns from that. There has always been diversity, which sometimes creates challenges, but having it is a strength of our system. However, parents must have confidence that what is taught is safe and age-appropriate. We believe that transparency is the best—indeed, the only—way to be absolutely sure of that, so it is essential that parents know what is being taught in the classroom and what resources are being used.
My hon. Friend the Member for Carshalton and Wallington was absolutely correct when he said that those requirements are already set out and clear. However, following concerns about things such as barriers because of copyrights, the Secretary of State has now written—twice—to all schools to remind them of the responsibility to make available materials, including relationships education materials, where parents want to see them, and that copyright law does not prevent them from doing that. We will ensure that the content of those letters is reflected in the revised RSHE statutory guidance when it comes out.
Nick Fletcher
The Department has written to schools, but I have evidence that they are ignoring the guidance. Will the Department write to the producers of this literature and tell them their responsibilities? There are fewer of them than there are schools, so that is probably the best way forward until we completely review what we are teaching our children and, hopefully, get in place a full right to withdraw from RSHE materials.
Damian Hinds
We think it is a good thing that there is a diversity of material to support all subjects. I mentioned that some religious organisations, for example, produce materials to support RSHE, as do many other organisations, such as commercial organisations and so on. Oak National Academy has committed to produce materials to support the teaching of RSHE in the future. Oak has had significant investment from Government, not so that it can replace other sources, but so that it can be a trusted and—from a teacher’s point of view—time-saving producer of those materials. However, we do not get involved in the production, or as a gatekeeper, of materials, and we will not do that with Oak either; it will do that independently. Our relationship is with the 22,000 schools that we have in this country and with the trusts and local authorities that they are part of; they make the decisions about what to teach with. Again, however, we think that the surest guarantee in this area is absolute transparency. That is the most important thing for everybody’s confidence in the system. As I said, the Secretary of State has already written to schools, and that will be reflected in the new guidance when it comes out.
Peter Gibson
Could the Minister provide a bit of clarity? If a school seeks to share with parents the information it will use in its classes, but the provider of that information refuses it permission to do so, could it legitimately terminate the contract with that provider, and should it do so?
Damian Hinds
I am not a lawyer; I will not start commenting on commercial contracts. However, in any circumstances, if a parent wants to see what their child is seeing in relationships and sex education, they should absolutely be able to do so.
Nick Fletcher
I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Darlington (Peter Gibson) for his comment. As I say, we agree on certain things, and it is important that we come together. I have a similar question: if parents see material they are not happy with—I have a folder full of material here that thousands have seen and are not happy with—what redress do they have? What can they do from that point forward, and what if the school will not listen?
Damian Hinds
In my experience, schools do listen. They want to listen, and they want to be in communion with their community and the parents at the school. I am not in the business of trying to create or encourage conflict; we want people to talk. We cannot legislate for everything; we cannot say that there is no circumstance in which an unsatisfactory outcome will pertain, but it is my firm belief that, when people talk to each other and try to understand each another, as a general rule, sensible ways forward can be found. Again, transparency is the key thing underpinning that. If we do not have transparency, we risk not having trust in what is actually happening.
To further strengthen the content in the RSHE statutory guidance, the Secretary of State brought forward a review of the guidance and appointed an independent expert panel to advise on the ages at which sensitive topics should be taught in the curriculum. We have also invited parents into the Department to share their experiences of school engagement and access to RSHE materials.
We are currently working through recommendations and expect to have the revised statutory guidance out for public consultation at the earliest opportunity. We are looking at how to be clearer about the distinctions between the subjects, and about the content taught in each of them, to support decisions about whether to withdraw children, including from relationships education. We will consult on those changes, and parents and other interested parties will have the opportunity to present their thoughts on the curriculum when the revised RSHE statutory guidance is published for consultation.
We know that young LGBT people are more likely to be bullied and discriminated against, and to suffer with mental ill health. The Department’s school omnibus survey of 2017 showed that after gender, being or being perceived to be LGBT is one of the main reasons why pupils face bullying. “Keeping children safe in education” is the statutory guidance that all schools and colleges must have regard to when carrying out their duties to safeguard and promote the welfare of children. Among other things, the guidance sets out how schools should protect children from harm and what to do if they have concerns about a child. In addition, all schools have to comply with the relevant requirements of the Equality Act 2010 and to ensure that topics in RSHE are taught in a way that does not discriminate against pupils or amount to harassment.
Over three years, the Department provided £3 million to fund five anti-bullying organisations to support schools to tackle bullying. That included projects targeting bullying of particular groups and projects supporting victims of hate-related or homophobic bullying. Anne Frank Trust UK has developed a “Different But The Same” project and supported nearly 80,000 young people and their teachers and schools to tackle bullying focused on protected characteristics.
Colleagues including the hon. Member for Sheffield Central (Paul Blomfield) and my hon. Friend the Member for Carshalton and Wallington raised the important topic of young people’s mental health. To support the mental health of pupils, the Government have committed to offer all state schools and colleges a grant to train a senior mental health lead by 2025, enabling them to introduce effective whole-school approaches to mental health and wellbeing. As at December 2023, 15,000 settings had claimed a grant, including more than seven in 10 state-funded secondary schools. The Department is also expanding mental health and wellbeing support for school and college leaders, and from April will begin funding a three-year mental health and wellbeing support package.
Our consultation on the different but related subject of gender questioning and related guidance has recently closed, and we will publish the Government response to the consultation alongside the guidance itself in the coming months. I want to reiterate today that the safety and wellbeing of children will always be our primary concern, which is why it is at the heart of that guidance. The new RSHE curriculum has been taught in schools for less than four years. We want to know what parents, teachers and, of course, pupils think, and our public consultation will give everyone the opportunity to tell us. In addition, we have sought the views of school leaders, teachers and pupils through an independent research project that has undertaken quantitative and qualitative research to look at how useful the statutory guidance is, the challenges in implementing it, pupils’ engagement, and teachers’ confidence in delivering it. The final report will be published shortly and support the review process.
The Government understand that parents are the primary educators of their children and that all will want to preserve the innocence of childhood until they feel the time is right to teach them about the society in which they are growing up. These children are our future business owners, doctors, dentists and politicians, and they need to understand and respect the diverse population of the country in which we live. The RSHE curriculum is there partly to help them to do just that.
Oral Answers to Questions
Damian Hinds Excerpts(8 months, 2 weeks ago)
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The Minister for Schools (Damian Hinds)
In 2010-11, school funding was £35 billion. Next year, it will be £59.6 billion. That is the highest ever level in real terms per pupil.
Sarah Owen
Recent figures show that the worst impacted schools in Luton North have endured more than £2 million of real-terms cuts since 2010. There are school roofs with holes in, buckets scattered across corridors collecting rainwater, and entire buildings held up by scaffolding. Those are the defining images of 14 years of Conservative Government, 14 years of budget cuts and teaching staff expected to do more with less. We need change. Children in Luton North deserve better. If the Minister agrees, why will he not give children what they deserve?
Damian Hinds
On the condition of school buildings, the hon. Lady will know that there is £1.8 billion-worth of capital for maintaining and improving school buildings. On the broader questions about school funding, she might have been alluding—I am looking for some visual recognition—to figures put together by the National Education Union. If so, I have to tell her that we believe those figures to be flawed in multiple respects, including in assumptions they make about the money and the number of children in schools in previous years. I hope she will join me in celebrating the record resourcing rightly going in to educating children.
Mr Robin Walker (Worcester) (Con)
I welcome the record real-terms funding flowing into our schools, but will my right hon. Friend join me in looking very carefully at the case for extending funding for tutoring? It has raised attainment, in particular for the most disadvantaged, in many of our schools, and been seen as a great success story. When it was introduced, it was intended to be a long-term intervention. May I urge the Minister to continue to look at that and ensure we find money, in addition to the pupil premium, to support that noble aim?
Damian Hinds
I absolutely agree that tutoring is important in multiple contexts. In particular, in the years since the pandemic it has played an essential part. I will add that tutoring by undergraduates can help to introduce a wider range of people to the potential of a career in teaching. I want tutoring to continue. As my hon. Friend rightly mentions, part of the function of the pupil premium is to make such interventions and it can be spent on them.
Sarah Dyke (Somerton and Frome) (LD)
A teacher in Frome recently reached out and told me that too few pupils are successful in their education, health and care plan applications. Without a plan and the accompanying support for children’s life chances, they are diminished. Can the Minister reassure my constituents that the Government’s plans to reform the EHCP will still ensure that children receive care that is personalised to their needs and not a one-size-fits-all approach to cut costs?
Damian Hinds
I absolutely and wholeheartedly agree with the hon. Lady on the central importance of that support and how vital it is to have it. There are, of course, many more EHCPs than there were statements under the old system, with more children receiving support. She will understand that I cannot comment on the individual case she mentions, but I will mention the special educational needs and disabilities and alternative provision improvement plan that we have in place.
Theresa Villiers (Chipping Barnet) (Con)
I welcome the substantial additional funding that has been given to maintained nursery schools in my constituency, but does the Minister agree that it is vital for us to continue to increase funding for all Barnet’s schools?
Damian Hinds
As ever, my right hon. Friend is a great champion and advocate for Barnet’s schools and, indeed, for maintained nursery schools, which, as she says, play a unique role in our system in carrying out those particular functions.
Catherine McKinnell (Newcastle upon Tyne North) (Lab)
Last year the National Audit Office reported that 700,000 children were being taught in schools needing major rebuilding works. On top of the problems caused by reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete, construction issues are emerging daily with block and beam flooring, high-alumina cement and asbestos—all long past their shelf life—up in North Tyneside and down to Luton and beyond. Fourteen years of Conservative Governments have left children learning under props and in portacabins and sheds. Given that this Government’s plan seems to be to leave it for the next Labour Government to sort out those problems, can the Minister at least inform us of the latest estimate of the total school repairs bill?
Damian Hinds
Keeping our school estates in the right condition for optimally educating children is of the foremost importance. Since 2015 we have allocated £15 billion to keeping schools safe and operational. I pay tribute to everyone who has been involved in the most recent RAAC issue, including the schools and pupils who dealt with it and my colleagues who helped to ensure that we reached this point. All schools have been told what will happen next: either they will receive a remediation grant, or they will be part of the school rebuilding programme.
Daniel Zeichner (Cambridge) (Lab)
John Penrose (Weston-super-Mare) (Con)
The Minister for Schools (Damian Hinds)
It is essential that young people are equipped to make important financial decisions later in life. My hon. Friend will recall our curriculum reforms, and the national curriculum for mathematics and secondary citizenship equips pupils with the essential knowledge, understanding and practical skills needed to manage their money.
John Penrose
The Minister is absolutely right to suggest that good financial education helps people to avoid debts and poverty, and to build up a savings cushion for a rainy day. Prevention is undoubtedly better than cure, yet while statutory guidance ensures that students learn about threats such as drugs or unplanned pregnancy, money and finance are more optional. Should they not be taken as seriously as everything else?
Damian Hinds
I agree with my hon. Friend. There is relevant content in different parts of the curriculum, not only in mathematics, which is statutory throughout key stages 1 to 4, but at secondary level in citizenship. Further elements such as computing are particularly relevant to online fraud. In relationships, sex and health education, some aspects of fraud are covered, as is gambling, but I absolutely agree that it is important to keep these things under review.
Chris Stephens (Glasgow South West) (SNP)
Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)
The Minister for Schools (Damian Hinds)
Supporting teacher wellbeing is crucial to our commitment to a supportive culture in schools, and for encouraging teacher retention. That is why we co-created the education staff wellbeing charter with the education sector, and we have invested over £1 million in school leader mental health and wellbeing support.
Mr Sheerman
Is the truth not that retention is down, recruitment is down and early retirements are up? What is the Minister going to do to boost the morale of teachers? They say to me, “Wouldn’t it be wonderful to have a Cabinet who had been through a state sector education and sent their children to state schools?”
Damian Hinds
I think the hon. Gentleman needs to do some research before he starts asking questions in Parliament. On recruitment and retention, I join him in stressing the importance of retention, which we are absolutely focused on, including through our workload programme. We have a good set of scholarships and bursaries for encouraging entry and a range of different routes into teaching to get the full range of talent that can benefit our children and young people.
Sir David Evennett (Bexleyheath and Crayford) (Con)
Would my right hon. Friend agree that good and enthusiastic teachers are vital to ensuring that we have good, successful schools and pupils? What more can be done to assist schools with discipline and truancy issues, because it would obviously help teachers’ morale if they could have some more support?
Damian Hinds
My right hon. Friend is absolutely right about the importance of brilliant teachers—I think he might have some personal experience of that. He is also right about the central importance of behaviour. In relation to retention, we hear back in surveys that we need to improve further on this. This is one of the reasons that we have the network of behaviour hubs, so that schools can learn one from another about what works best.
Carol Monaghan (Glasgow North West) (SNP)
Morale among teachers and support staff is affected by their pay and working conditions, and now the teachers are being threatened with minimum service levels, which would limit their fundamental right to strike. Surely the Minister can recognise that this course of action will lower morale further and ultimately impact the recruitment and retention of teaching staff.
Damian Hinds
Nobody is talking about taking away the right to strike. All that we are seeking to do is balance that right, which we absolutely recognise and protect, with the right of a child to have an education.
Mr Mark Francois (Rayleigh and Wickford) (Con)
Sir Simon Clarke (Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland) (Con)
The Minister for Schools (Damian Hinds)
Skelton Primary School was announced in the second round of the school rebuilding programme in July 2021. It is the second school in a batch being delivered by the contractor Tilbury Douglas. We therefore expect construction work on this complete new build to begin in late summer and complete next year.
Sir Simon Clarke
I thank my right hon. Friend for his answer, which is reassuring news, because Skelton Primary is a very good school but it is in need of a comprehensive rebuild. The headteacher, Mrs Walker, worked through last summer in the expectation that the rebuild could begin as soon as this Easter, but that has not happened, because the builders came back saying that more money was required. Will my right hon. Friend assure me that that date of the end of the summer is now fixed? Will it be possible for me to meet the civil service team in charge to discuss this with them further?
Damian Hinds
I acknowledge all that my right hon. Friend says. I can reassure him that the scope of works, including all funding committed, has been confirmed on this new build. However, of course, if it would be helpful to have a meeting, I would be happy to do this.
Greg Smith (Buckingham) (Con)
Steve Tuckwell (Uxbridge and South Ruislip) (Con)
The Minister for Schools (Damian Hinds)
Great teaching is truly transformational in children’s lives. Thanks to our brilliant teachers, and the focus on high standards in the curriculum, attendance and behaviour, nine and 10-year-olds in England are now the fourth best in the world for reading.
Steve Tuckwell
We have seen how children in English schools are the best readers in the western world thanks to this Government. In Uxbridge and South Ruislip, we see how that work is being translated into outstanding or good Ofsted ratings. Will my right hon. Friend join me in congratulating the team at Ruislip High School and the children’s services team at Hillingdon Council on their recent outstanding ratings, and will he pledge to work with me to ensure that children across Uxbridge and South Ruislip have the best possible education?
Damian Hinds
I join my hon. Friend in congratulating Ruislip High School and Hillingdon Council’s children’s services team. Nearly 90% of schools in Uxbridge and South Ruislip are now rated good or outstanding by Ofsted, up from under 70% in 2010, following the great work of teachers and our relentless focus on improving school standards.
Stella Creasy (Walthamstow) (Lab/Co-op)
Gareth Johnson (Dartford) (Con)
The Minister for Schools (Damian Hinds)
I support all great schools in our diverse school system, including strong grammar schools. I continue to encourage grammar schools to increase access for disadvantaged pupils, which can help so much with social mobility.
Grahame Morris (Easington) (Lab)
Damian Hinds
In the 2021 spending review, we committed £19 billion for school capital over the three years. I do not know offhand the specifics of the schools that the hon. Gentleman has mentioned, but I would of course be very happy to meet him to hear further details.
Mark Eastwood (Dewsbury) (Con)
Damian Hinds
The hon. Gentleman will, of course, know of our plans and our support for the private Member’s Bill on that subject. He and I used to serve together on the Education Committee back in the day; these are issues that have been long standing, including under previous Governments. From the schools White Paper, he will also know of the other things we have committed to do when legislative time allows.
Selaine Saxby (North Devon) (Con)
Damian Hinds
I recognise what my hon. Friend says about rurality. Of course, the lump sum element in the funding formula is important for small schools. We have more than doubled the national funding formula sparsity funding in three years, with £6.5 million for Devon in 2024-25. We are also investing to improve the condition of school buildings, and Devon County Council received an annual capital allocation of £3.5 million this year.
Mary Glindon (North Tyneside) (Lab)
Ministers will be aware that four schools in North Tyneside closed just over a month ago because of a structural problem not related to RAAC. The 1,700 pupils have been relocated, thanks to the council and to the schools working together. Can the Minister assure me that funding will be made available either to rebuild or to restructure the schools as soon as it is needed?
Damian Hinds
Yes, and I am aware that the hon. Lady has met my noble Friend Baroness Barran. Inspections by structural engineers are ongoing, as I think the hon. Lady will know, but the early indications are that this was a historical and isolated issue about the way the school was built. We continue to work with the local authority and with the school, and I would of course be happy—if appropriate, and if it would help—to meet her in due course.
Tim Loughton (East Worthing and Shoreham) (Con)
About 10 years ago, following the Government’s reforms, the number of adoptions in England doubled, but 10 years on, they have halved. Why?
Dr James Davies (Vale of Clwyd) (Con)
Headteachers in Denbighshire, Flintshire and Conwy have recently written to all parents about the dire financial situation facing their schools. My understanding is that schools in England are receiving the highest funding ever per pupil in real terms. Will my right hon. Friend confirm that and outline what discussions he has had with the Welsh Government to ensure schools in Wales also see the benefit of that funding?
Damian Hinds
I regret that, as education is a devolved matter, the Labour party is in charge of education in Wales. It really saddens me to hear of children in my hon. Friend’s constituency suffering from its mismanagement of that system, despite the great work of brilliant and inspiring teachers in Wales. He is absolutely right that in England, under this Government, funding is at a record level. Meanwhile, in Wales, I am sad to say that education standards are not only the lowest in the UK, but lower than the OECD average. I am afraid it is clear that every time Labour gets into power, children’s education suffers.
Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)
The Secretary of State loves plans. What is her plan to reinvigorate and change the course of Ofsted?
Colleges Week
Damian Hinds Excerpts(8 months, 3 weeks ago)
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The Minister for Schools (Damian Hinds)
It is a great pleasure to see you in the Chair, Sir Robert. I join colleagues in congratulating my hon. Friend the Member for Waveney (Peter Aldous) on securing this debate in Westminster Hall on this important subject. He rightly mentioned that he and I have talked about these topics many times over—I think it is fair to say—many years. I know he has a fervent passion for and deep knowledge of the subject, and I thank him for what he does with the all-party parliamentary group on further education and lifelong learning. I join him in thanking and congratulating the Association of Colleges. Like many colleagues, I had the opportunity earlier this week to go over the road—the other side of Parliament Square—to the AOC awards event. It was great to meet an award winner from my local college in Alton and its other campus in Havant, but also to see the huge variety of people benefiting from all that colleges have to offer. Both my hon. Friend and my hon. Friend the Member for Harrogate and Knaresborough (Andrew Jones) spoke with passion about the importance of colleges and the great work they do in educating and training people of all ages and backgrounds, as well as the key role they play in communities. They rightly talked about the challenges they face, and I do not argue with any of that.
I am the Minister for Schools, but I still know there is no more important subject than colleges. I see every day that we have great schools educating our children, giving them a great education and grounding to take them on whatever path they choose at age 16. Of course, we also have strong higher education institutions, delivering world-class higher education to young people and equipping them with the high-level education and skills they need. We then have further education colleges, which are the filling—if you like—in the education sandwich. Like the best sandwich options, there is a variety to choose from because colleges do just about everything, including all the things I have just mentioned. They do basic skills, English and maths and so-called level 3 provision. More recently, there has been the introduction of T-levels. They do apprenticeships, as we have been talking about, and I will come back to adult learning. As my hon. Friend the Member for Waveney reminded us, FE colleges also do HE, as well as pre-16 provision for certain groups of young people. To cap it all, some colleges even have their own nursery—they are really providing the full range of education. We are not talking about jacks of all trades, because they do not just do lots of things; they do them very well. The latest figures show that approximately 92% of colleges were judged to be good or outstanding at their most recent inspection, which is quite an incredible figure.
The Secretary of State and the Minister for Skills, Apprenticeships and Higher Education visit colleges around the country frequently. I should say, by the way, that the latter would have loved to be here today. He phoned me this morning to say so, and to ask me to pass on his best wishes, in particular in celebration of Colleges Week. He is not able to physically be in two places at once; otherwise, he would have been here. The Secretary of State and the Minister meet staff and students and see at first hand some of the excellent work they are doing, as I have had the opportunity to do in previous roles in the DFE. They are astounded by the range and breadth of high-quality provision on offer in fantastic facilities.
My hon. Friend the Member for Waveney rightly alluded to another key role that FE colleges carry out, which is acting as agents of social mobility. Many learners in FE come from disadvantaged backgrounds, so our colleges are essential for ensuring that individuals from all backgrounds are supported to progress into employment or further learning. It is fair to say that for many years, colleges were unsung heroes, doing fantastic work without ever really getting commensurate recognition for that work. That has changed now, because everybody understands and recognises the importance of what they do. This debate is a great example of that recognition.
The skills agenda, in which colleges play a critical role, is one of my Department’s key priorities. Colleges are delivering our radical skills reforms, helping individuals with basic skills needs right up to challenging the highest performers to reach their potential, raising the stages of technical education through the delivery of apprenticeships and the introduction of rigorous T-levels.
It is easy for us to say that colleges are great, and that we recognise all they do, but we need to back that up with support and investment. That is why we are making major investment in post-16 education, in which colleges play a huge part, with an additional £3.8 billion over this Parliament for education and skills. In particular, throughout this Parliament, we have consistently increased overall funding for 16-to-19 education year on year, including an extra £1.6 billion in 2024-25 compared with 2021-22—the biggest increase in 16-to-19 funding in a decade. FE colleges, like all 16-to-19 providers, have benefited from that investment. We are investing £3 billion in capital between 2022 and 2025 to improve the condition of the post-16 estate, deliver new places in post-16 education, provide more specialist equipment and facilities for T-levels and deliver institutes of technology.
We recognise that the issues colleges are facing are not just about whether they have enough funding and how to make the funding stretch to deliver everything they need to do, but about systems, procedures and bureaucracy. Colleges have told Government that we need to address those things, and we have listened. That is why we have consulted on reforming the further education funding and accountability systems, and last year issued our response. We have committed to simplifying funding systems and creating a single adult skills fund and a single development fund. We have already started delivering on those commitments and will continue this work to reduce the bureaucracy associated with funding. We have set out a much clearer approach to support an intervention for colleges, and will also remove duplicative data collection and take steps to simplify and improve audit. All these things will help to minimise burdens on colleges and let them focus their efforts on delivering that excellent education and training.
Of course, FE would not be what it is without teachers and teaching. The quality of teaching and leaders is the biggest determinant of outcomes for learners, and that is why we are investing £470 million over the financial years 2023-24 and 2024-25 to support colleges and other providers, and to address key priorities, including on recruitment and retention. That funding has already fed through to colleges and other providers via increased 16-19 rates and programme cost weight increases from last September.
It is part of a wider programme to support the sector to recruit excellent staff. That includes a national recruitment campaign to strengthen and incentivise the uptake of initial teacher education, teacher training bursaries and the Taking Teaching Further training programme. We also announced £200 million to improve teacher recruitment and retention by giving those who teach key shortage subjects a payment of up to £6,000, tax-free, per year in the first five years of their career. For the first time, that applies to those teaching eligible subjects in all FE colleges.
Let me turn to some of the comments made by the hon. Lady who speaks for the Opposition, the hon. Member for Feltham and Heston (Seema Malhotra). This debate has not been primarily party political, and nor should it be. We are celebrating Colleges Week, and that is something on which colleagues right across this House agree. I welcome a number of the things that the hon. Lady said, but there are a couple that I cannot quite let go, particularly on the subject of apprenticeships.
My hon. Friend the Member for Worcester (Mr Walker) was quite right in saying that, if we are going to talk about apprenticeships, we must talk like for like. I am afraid that, before 2010, there were some people who, when asked about the quality of their apprenticeship, did not know that they were on an apprenticeship. We have changed that and underpinned the apprenticeships programme with guarantees of quality: the minimum length of the course; the minimum amount of time in college; the creation of the Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education; and, critically, employer-designed standards. That has made a very solid set of very high- quality apprenticeships. I would urge the hon. Lady and her party not to pursue the plans and policy that they appear to be—not to undermine those apprenticeships or have fewer of them, and instead create a new quango.
Seema Malhotra
I thank the Minister for his comments, and we do not need to get into a debate today—there are many other opportunities for that. He is right that it is important that we do not create dividing lines where we do not have them, in an area that needs both stability and long-term planning, but I want to challenge him on the point he has made. It is true that apprenticeships starts have fallen, and I am not saying that we have not also supported some changes through the passage of time. However, we all know that there are challenges, such as employer involvement in start-ups, employer fatigue due to the difficulties with the current apprenticeship system and the drop in SME engagement, and it is really important that the Government acknowledge those challenges.
It is also important not to misrepresent Labour’s call for a reform where employers, if they so chose, could spend up to 50% of their apprenticeship levy more flexibly. Too much of that levy is being returned to the Treasury because employers are unable to spend it on any learning. For most employers, the reform would not make much of a difference because they are only able to spend about 50% of their levy, and that would not change. Perhaps the Minister might also know that, if we see more growth in the economy, we will also see more of the levy coming in and greater apprenticeships there too.
Damian Hinds
Again, let us not have a party political debate—that is not the nature of this discussion today. I can absolutely assure the hon. Lady that I have not misrepresented the Labour party’s policy in the slightest. She then went on to repeat it, which is to say that there would be less money guaranteed to be available for apprenticeships. That would surely lead to a move away from those high-quality apprenticeships that I mentioned. I understand the attraction of voices saying that the levy is not a good way of doing things, but I have to tell the hon. Lady that it addresses a fundamental problem—
Seema Malhotra
I thank the Minister again, but I think he does not fully understand the Labour policy and that may be because he has not engaged with it in detail. The point on the growth and skills levy is that the opportunity to spend on more modular courses and more flexible learning, creating the opportunity to build qualifications through more modular approaches, could support more engagement with learning and contribute to a reduction in the early ending of apprenticeships, where the targets of apprenticeship completion are not even being met. That is a real issue.
Damian Hinds
I assure the hon. Lady that if there is any misunderstanding about the Labour party’s policy, it is not because people have failed to engage with it; it is because it is not clear—and one great benefit of our apprenticeship system is that it is clear. The approach of the apprenticeship levy resolves one of the fundamental questions of investing in human capital, training and people, which is the so-called free rider problem.
For many years, some employers invested strongly in their workforces and then some of the members of those workforces, after a couple of years of training, would get up and go to the competitor. The levy is precisely to make sure that the whole of our economy and the whole of industry has a like interest in developing those skills and developing investing in the potential of people. I advise the hon. Lady to be careful in deciding to get rid of that and replace it with a new and unneeded quango.
I turn to my hon. Friend the Member for Harrogate and Knaresborough, who also spoke about the centrality of apprenticeships and the quality of them. He spoke about the importance of colleges to the whole local economic area. I too represent an area with a particularly low level of unemployment, even though unemployment across the country is low compared with historical norms—it is at slightly less than half the level it was when I and my hon. Friends the Members for Harrogate and Knaresborough and for Waveney came into Parliament in 2010.
Particularly in areas of even lower unemployment, however, skills matching becomes vital for the local economy. I also join my hon. Friend the Member for Harrogate and Knaresborough in congratulating both Harrogate College and the Luminate Education Group on their work on the renewable energy skills hub. That is a great example of colleges being future-looking, forward-looking and innovative, making sure we are equipped with the skills for the future and creating facilities that contribute to that.
I come now to my hon. Friend the Member for Waveney, who has brought us to this Chamber today—and we are all grateful to him for doing so. He listed some of the several ways in which colleges are vital to our economy and society. He too spoke of the importance of colleges in their local communities. He reminded us that that is about people of all ages—including those who might not have had that great an experience coming through education the first time, who can have another chance, and those who had a fantastic experience the first time around, who can further develop their skills. It is also about the jobs of tomorrow and making sure we can continue to adapt and that in so doing we offer social mobility to people throughout the country.
My hon. Friend also talked about productivity, which is so important here. We know that there has long been a big productivity gap—since the year I was born and beyond, and I am 54—between this country and the United States and Germany in particular. It has improved, but it is still a gap and we need to move further. Making sure we can match skills to where they are needed and hone those skills is incredibly important.
My hon. Friend also spoke about the importance of colleges themselves as big employers in local areas, and we should never forget that. He also discussed the importance of working with employers, a subject also covered by our hon. Friend the Member for Harrogate and Knaresborough. In particular, I note the work of Suffolk New College in leading on the local skills improvement fund for my hon. Friend the Member for Waveney’s area. Indeed, I pay tribute to all three colleges serving his local area—East Coast College, Suffolk New College and West Suffolk College.
We are getting close to a fiscal event, and my hon. Friend quite rightly put in his Budget bids, which will have been heard. He also talked about some of the progress made. I agree that the value of the Baker clause is not just what it does directly, but the symbolism and the message it gives that all children should know about the full range of what is available to them at the age of 16. Some of those children will be better suited to going to a school sixth form, some will be better suited to going to a sixth form college and some will be better suited to going to an FE college. Some will be better suited to a largely academic route and some will be better suited to a technical and vocational route. Having those options made known at a suitable time in that journey is really important.
There are also T-levels. Of course, colleges are not the only places that deliver T-levels, but they are at the centre of that great reform. They offer more hours in college and bring English, maths and digital skills right into integration with the core vocational subjects and, crucially, the nine-week or 45-day industrial placement. When I meet employers or young people who have done T-levels, that is the thing they always talk about the most: the opportunity to apply what they learn in college directly in a workplace and develop the workplace skills that we know are so valued by employers. By the way, they bring an opportunity to see a young person in action in the workplace for an extended period.
There are the higher-level technical qualifications and the advanced British standard, which is in development now. My hon. Friend the Member for Waveney was quite right that we are developing that landmark reform to remove fully the artificial divide between the academic and the vocational. In doing that, we need to start investing now—and we are investing now. That is such an important point to make, and it is understood across Government.
When people think about a college, probably the first thing that comes into their head is a picture of a building, but my hon. Friend and I, and everyone here, know that it is all about people. That is why those investments in people are so important, including the extension of the levelling-up premium to further education colleges for the first time. The Teach in FE recruitment campaign is running, and there is the Taking Teaching Further programme. We know that there is a particular importance to, and sometimes a challenge in, getting people with recent industrial experience—those “on the tools”—into college to impart those skills onwards. There are FE teacher training bursaries worth up to £30,000, depending on the subject, tax-free, in the academic year 2024-25.
I will close by thanking everybody who has taken part in this debate, particularly our hon. Friend the Member for Waveney for tabling it and convening this important discussion. It was informative to hear from him and others about local issues, successes and, of course, how much we value our colleges—“Love our Colleges”, to coin a phrase from Colleges Week. The one clear thing coming from this debate is that we all recognise the importance, value and role of our colleges, as the strapline that I just mentioned makes clear.
I have set out how we are backing our recognition of colleges through investment and support by increasing funding, investing in facilities and estate, reforming accountability and funding to reduce burdens and investing in programmes to support and boost the further education workforce. I hope and believe that those things will benefit colleges and support them to deliver. I know that we ask colleges to deliver a lot these days, but that is because we know that they can and do deliver incredibly well.
Access to Education: South-East Northumberland
Damian Hinds Excerpts(9 months ago)
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The Minister for Schools (Damian Hinds)
It is a great pleasure to see you in the Chair, Mr Henderson. It is an auspicious day: I believe it is your maiden chairing of Westminster Hall, and it is a privilege for us all to be part of it.
I congratulate the hon. Member for Wansbeck (Ian Lavery) on his passionate and comprehensive remarks about access to education in his area. The Government are committed to ensuring that every child in the country has a first-class education and every opportunity to make the most of their abilities. We are also committed to ensuring fair access to a good school place for every child, including the most vulnerable. That is why we have taken steps to ensure that schools allocate places in a clear, fair and objective way.
As the hon. Gentleman knows, all state-funded schools, including academies, are required to comply with the school admissions code. In 2021, a new code came into effect, which aims to improve access to school for vulnerable children and to reduce any gaps in their education. The latest data available show that the admissions system is working well. Nationally, in 2023, 94% of parents received an offer of a place at one of their top three preferences for secondary schools, and 98% an offer at one of the top three preferences for primary schools. That matches 2022, so we are maintaining that high level.
Anyone who thinks a school’s admission arrangements are unlawful or unfair can object to the schools adjudicator. The adjudicator’s decision is legally binding. If a school fails to meet its statutory duties, it can be directed to do so by the Secretary of State. I understand that the hon. Gentleman and his constituents will be concerned when children and young people are unable to attend the parents’ preferred choice of local school. The Department works closely with local authorities and admissions authorities on those matters.
Overall in 2023, in Northumberland 99% of parents received an offer at one of their top three preferences for secondary, and 93% were offered their first preference. That compares with 94% nationally for top three and 82.5% for first preference. So, the Northumberland rates are above the national average. As he will know, academy trusts are their own admissions authority, but we do expect local authorities and schools, academy trusts and diocesan authorities to work together, to ensure there is a co-ordinated approach, which helps local authorities to meet the duty on place sufficiency.
I do, though, recognise the frustration of parents and carers living in south-east Northumberland, who may now be less sure of their child’s chance of accessing a place at their school of choice, due to the academy’s change of admissions criteria in 2020, which considers distance from the academy rather than attendance at specific feeder schools, as the hon. Gentleman rightly identified.
Distance is not an uncommon criterion; in fact it is very commonly used for admissions. It does ensure that children living close to the school can access their local school and avoid travelling longer distances. Data provided by the local authority indicate that the number of year 7 pupils in the area will decrease over the current forecast period, up to 2029. To provide wider background for colleagues, there is a general effect going on in the demography of the country. It is not the same everywhere; there are different patterns in different communities.
There has been a bulge—not the most elegant term—of pupils coming through primary school who are now going to secondary school. The secondary school will initially grow, and primary numbers overall will tend to come down somewhat. Over time, that effect will work its way through secondary school as well. The long and the short of that is to say that one would expect that in year 7 admissions those numbers will change over the years.
The local authority is reporting that there are sufficient physical places to meet demand. I do accept that, in some cases, those would be places lower down in preference, due to established patterns of travel, the over-subscription criteria of some schools, or where a school is continuing its improvement journey. We will do all we can to speed up that improvement, so that there is genuine choice in local areas.
The hon. Gentleman asked me to reflect on and respond to some specific points, some of which I have covered in my remarks already. I would say overall on school choice, all parents want the best for their children. In any system where there is school choice, not quite everybody gets their first, and that is a by-product of that choice. As was the policy of the previous Government prior to 2010, we also believe that parents having that choice to rank their preferred schools in order carries great benefits, including for families and children themselves.
The hon. Member asked specifically about housing development. Local authorities make projections of birth rates and the expected effect of rates of housing development, depending on the type of housing, how many families with children there are likely to be and the likely age of those children. I am sure that his authority in Northumberland will do that as well.
The hon. Member referred to PANs, and schools can and do change PANs over time. He is right to identify that in the particular case that we are talking about today, those admission numbers were reduced. That was part of the school improvement plan to give greater headroom. As he rightly said, that improvement has been happening in those schools and we have been seeing better results. I gather that the trust has also been allowing some admission over the PAN, which has been of some assistance.
The Opposition spokesperson, the hon. Member for Feltham and Heston (Seema Malhotra), took the debate into wider areas beyond just south-east Northumberland, which gives me an opportunity to respond to some of those points, so I am grateful to her. She mentioned having to provide for school choice, and I agree entirely. That is why we have created over a million new places in the school system since 2010, specifically to make sure not only that there are adequate numbers, but that school choice is facilitated. That stands in contrast to the 100,000 that were cut in the years leading up to 2010. There is now the highest funding that there has been in schools.
The hon. Lady spoke about attendance, and she is right to identify that we have an issue with school absence, and particularly persistent absence. By the way, we share that issue with most other countries in the world. We certainly share it with the other countries in the United Kingdom, including where other political parties are in control, but we see this much more broadly. During covid, there was an adverse impact on some people—not just directly connected with covid, but in its aftermath—and that has been difficult to work through. That is very understandable and no one is blaming parents for it, but some attitudes to the threshold at which a child should stay home from school if they are under the weather have moved a bit. We are trying to change those attitudes back to where we were pre-covid, and there has been progress. If we look at the autumn term that just finished, absence was markedly lower than it was in the autumn term a year before, but we know there is further to go and we will continue to work on that.
The hon. Lady also mentioned wider questions around society, income levels and the effect on children. She will know that we have extended eligibility for free school meals much more widely than the previous Government did. When her party was in government, one in six children received free school meals, but it is now one in three. That comes at a time when the number of children in workless households has come down markedly—by 600,000 since 2010—and at a time when the proportion of those in work who are on low pay, as a result of the national living wage, has come down very significantly as well. We have also invested heavily in breakfast clubs, holiday activities, food funds and more.
We have made five major extensions to early years and childcare entitlement, and there is a sixth very big extension on its way. In higher education, the opportunities for people from lower income backgrounds to attend university are greater than they have ever been.
The hon. Lady even touched on apprenticeships, which I was surprised about. Apprenticeships have been totally overhauled and reformed. We have modern apprenticeships designed by employers with proper end assessments. We have introduced T-levels with a very substantial, industrial work placement at the centre of them, with English, maths and digital and more hours in college. Again, that is designed and certified by employers. Those are materially increasing the life chances of children taking vocational and academic routes.
We see the results in such things as the PISA—programme for international student assessment—comparisons of international performance in education. In the period from 1997 to 2010, although ostensibly results domestically looked like they were improving, on the international comparisons we were coming down. Since 2010, we have come back up—
Seema Malhotra
I do not propose to come back on all the points that the Minister has made, but the poverty and the challenges of the cost of living crisis and the sustained impact of austerity are having a huge impact on children and families. The impact has been cumulative over many years. Apprenticeship numbers have been dropping since 2017, with the impact of the levy that was implemented, and the engagement of small and medium-sized enterprises with apprenticeships has dropped by 49% since 2016. Those are official figures. Does he agree that it is important, in terms of a good-quality education, that we look at the sustained engagement of employers and tackle the barriers? It is important to recognise that they exist rather than pretending that there is not a problem.
Damian Hinds
When the Labour party was in government, there were many people on apprenticeships who, when asked in a survey about their apprenticeship, did not know that they were on an apprenticeship. That is the change that we have made. Apprenticeships now have proper quality. They are designed by employers. They have a minimum length and minimum time in college. The apprenticeship levy is a landmark reform that underpins that. It gets rid of the free rider problem, which has forever been an issue throughout industry and investment in training, and we now have a most brilliant generation of apprentices coming through.
Up to 70% of trades and occupations are available on an apprenticeship, including the teaching degree apprenticeship. Those are fantastic achievements and I hope that the hon. Lady’s party will turn their backs on what they seem to be saying, which is that they are going to cut the number of apprenticeships and not commit to that system going forward.
But we digress, and I wish to come back to the hon. Member for Wansbeck and thank him again for bringing this important matter to the Floor of Westminster Hall. I thank all those who have contributed. The vast majority of secondary schools in south-east Northumberland are part of strong academy trusts. They provide a good standard of education. Where there are improvements still to be made, we work closely with schools, academy trusts and local authorities to provide support and challenge to ensure that standards are raised. Ashington Academy became a sponsored academy after being judged “inadequate” by Ofsted. It was judged “good” at its first inspection as an academy in 2022 and now performs significantly higher than the national average, therefore improving the life chances of its students.
I want to express my sincere thanks to all those working to secure strong outcomes for children and young people, including the provision of high-quality school places in Northumberland and across our country. My officials will continue to monitor place planning issues in the local area and will engage with the hon. Gentleman’s local authority and academy trusts to ensure that there is fair access to good school places, which is something that he, I and all of us here care passionately about.
Gordon Henderson (in the Chair)
We appear to have a few minutes left. Does Ian Lavery want to wind up?
Register of Children not in School
Damian Hinds Excerpts(9 months ago)
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The Minister for Schools (Damian Hinds)
It is a great pleasure to serve with you in the Chair, Sir Christopher— I think for the first time. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Meon Valley (Mrs Drummond), my constituency neighbour, on securing this debate on a topic that is a Government priority. I thank her for all her work in this policy area and her continued interest in introducing legislation for registers of children not in school. As she knows, we share that ambition. Both I and the Secretary of State for Education look forward to working with my hon. Friend as she takes her Children Not in School (Registers, Support and Orders) Bill through Parliament. It is vital that we ensure that the rights of all children are upheld. In the case of children not in school, that is the fundamental right to a suitable education, which is in children’s best interests.
In the majority of cases, children not in school will likely be those who are home educated. It is important that we recognise that, in most cases, parents will be doing home education well and for all the right reasons. Home education is not easy and parents will often put in extensive time and resource to provide suitable education for their children, sometimes in challenging circumstances. I pay tribute again to all those parents who have made the difficult decision to home educate when the education of their child is at the centre of that decision. Home education is a parental right that the Government will continue to defend. Any form of registration of children not in school will not infringe that right. Registration will, however, better ensure that we defend children’s rights to a suitable education.
Over recent years, as various colleagues have alluded to, the number of home educating families has continued to increase. In summer 2023, the Department for Education estimated that 97,600 children were home educated in England—about 1% of all school-age children. Although such an increase is not necessarily an issue, we know from local authorities and the data on children missing education that not all children are in receipt of a suitable education when they are at home. I cannot stress enough that registration is not intended to impact parents who are home educating with good intentions and, as I said, often making numerous sacrifices to do it well. By knowing where the families are, we can better ensure that we target support to those who need it most and are not receiving a suitable education.
Without a statutory register of children not in school and the accompanying duties on parents and certain out-of-school education providers to supply information to it, we cannot know for certain the scale of how many children are missing education. We cannot know for sure how many children are in home education and what subset are in home education but not receiving a suitable education, or how many are receiving no education at all. Although we have taken steps, through our termly data collection from local authorities on electively home educated children and children missing education, to increase our understanding of that cohort and improve the accuracy of local authority data, that alone will not suffice. That is why the Department continues to remain committed to legislating for statutory registers.
The Department for Education’s commitment to establishing a local authority-administered registration system was first set out in our “Children not in school” consultation response, published in February 2022. That policy intention led to the children not in school measures that were part of the 2022 Schools Bill. The measures proposed the creation of duties on local authorities to maintain registers of eligible children and a duty on local authorities to provide support to home educating families when that was requested.
The measures did not include any proposals to extend local authorities’ powers to monitor the quality of the education being received, and that continues to be the case. The Government do not see the need for greater monitoring powers. We believe that local authorities’ existing powers, when they are used in the way set out in our elective home education guidance—which is currently being reviewed—are already sufficient to enable a local authority to determine whether the education is suitable.
I do not yet know the full detail of the private Member’s Bill promoted by my hon. Friend the Member for Meon Valley. As colleagues know, the Government cannot support a private Member’s Bill prior to Second Reading, but I can say that the Government remain committed to introducing statutory local authority registers as well as a duty for local authorities to provide support to home educating families. Clearly, that which my hon. Friend seeks to do and what the Government wish to do coincide.
There are three main benefits to measures for children not in school. First, local authorities having registers of children not in school would help local authorities to better identify eligible children and help those missing education. New duties on parents to proactively provide to the local authority their name, their child’s name, their address and the means of education—such as where and who provides their child’s education—as well as new duties on certain providers of out-of-school education to reactively provide information on eligible children, such as their name and address, will help to identify more eligible children than is currently possible. The new information in the registers would help authorities to undertake their existing responsibilities for the purpose of ensuring that education is suitable and that children are safe.
Secondly, as I have already mentioned, that will ensure that both local authorities and the Department for Education have the necessary data to understand the scale and needs of this cohort of children, including the reasons why parents may choose to home educate. I will come back to that in a moment, in response to comments made by a number of colleagues.
Thirdly, those children and parents who want it will be able to benefit from additional support from the local authority. Our measures contained a duty on local authorities to provide or secure such support where requested to registered home-educating families to promote the education of a child. We felt that the support element of the measures was a vital component in encouraging positive engagement between local authorities and home educators and helping to ensure good-quality education. The support could have included advice about education; information about sources of assistance; provision of facilities, services or assistance; or access to non-educational services or benefits, such as to support home-educating parents to access exams or online teaching resources, for example through the Oak National Academy.
Jim Shannon
I am grateful to the Minister for that response. I suggested to him some of the things that my constituents did in Strangford. Although they were individually home schooling, they came together collectively for visits—every child loves a visit—to the council, the museum, the leisure centre or wherever, and that was something that was encouraged. Is there any possibility that the Minister, who is putting forward very positive thoughts, could consider that suggestion?
Damian Hinds
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman, as ever. I was coming to that point, but as he has brought it forward I will say now that the guidance already encourages collaboration between home educators. As he says, in coming together often we can achieve more, and it is possible in principle that that could be enhanced further through the provisions on additional support. He makes a good point.
The measures would have ensured consistency of approach across local authorities through regulations and new statutory guidance, and it remains our intention to work closely with home educators, local authorities and other key stakeholders prior to the introduction of any new statutory system to ensure that it is implemented in a way that works both for home-educating parents and for local authorities. In the meantime, the Government continue to work with local authorities to improve their existing non-statutory registers and to support local authorities to ensure that all children in their area receive a suitable education.
The Department’s consultation on revised guidance on elective home education for local authorities and parents closed on 18 January. We received more than 4,000 responses, which are being analysed. We will of course publish our consultation response along with the revised guidance in the coming months. The Department has worked closely with stakeholders, including home educators, to develop that guidance, which aims to help parents and local authorities better understand what they are required to do and what should be done to ensure that all children receive a suitable education. That includes improving aspects of the guidance to make clearer the processes for when preliminary notices and school attendance orders should be issued, encouraging a more collaborative approach between local authorities and home-educating parents, and focusing more on available support for home-educating families.
Through our termly local authority data collection on elective home education and on children missing education, we are also increasing the accuracy of all local authority non-statutory registers and improving local authority and departmental understanding of children not in school. However, as I have already set out, true data accuracy will be gained only with mandatory registers, which would specify the data to be recorded. The accompanying duty on parents to inform local authorities when they are home educating and the duty on out-of-school education providers to provide information on request are necessary to ensure that we identify all eligible children. We have recently conducted a call for evidence on improving support for children not receiving any education—some of the most vulnerable children in our society—and held webinars for local authorities on meeting their duties to identify those children, and we continue to collect data on children missing education to increase transparency and identify where further support is needed.
I thank all colleagues who have taken part in the debate for bringing to the House their expertise, constituency reflections and experiences. I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Meon Valley, who led the way. Since she came to Parliament, she has devoted her sharp mind and strong advocacy to a number of causes, but education has always been extremely high on her list. She explained clearly what motivated her to support this cause and introduce her private Member’s Bill. She paid warm tribute to parents who make great sacrifices and go to great lengths to home educate their children, and she put it pithily when she said “not every child is your child”—other children are in completely different circumstances. That in no way undermines what any parent is doing, and it does not conflate any two sets of circumstances. That point came up in a number of Members’ contributions. The hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) made that case, as did his colleague, the hon. Member for East Londonderry (Mr Campbell). The hon. Member for Strangford also spoke about the importance of support; in responding to his intervention, I covered some of his points.
My hon. Friend the Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton) spoke about a number of issues, including looked-after children and children in care. Since his time as Children’s Minister, he has maintained a close interest in that issue and has been very active on it. He also spoke about our largely or partly unsung success—the great strides we have made in education in this country since 2010. I pay tribute to his contribution to that through the great work he did at the Department for Education.
Our guiding philosophy since 2010 has been that we must drive up standards while closing the attainment gap. Great strides have been made in both areas, as can be seen in the international comparisons. Between 1997 and 2010, although results were ostensibly going up domestically, in fact England was coming down the international comparison tables. Since 2010, that has reversed, and crucially—as I say, this has been at the heart of our philosophy—that has been accompanied by other things we have been doing, such as the pupil premium. Great progress was made in narrowing the gap, but of course covid put a dent in education overall—that is true right across the world—and produced new challenges with the attainment gap. The attainment gap is also in part related to differential rates of attendance among different groups in the school community. That is just one of the reasons why we have a laser-like focus on attendance as we ensure we continue to raise standards in school.
Like my hon. Friend the Member for Hastings and Rye (Sally-Ann Hart), my hon. Friend the Member for East Worthing and Shoreham raised some of the wider factors and spoke about the different settings in the system and the challenges and issues. Although those are not the subject of today’s debate—I will not try your patience by going there, Sir Christopher—those are very important points.
As always, my hon. Friend the Member for Hastings and Rye brought to bear her experience in East Sussex and Hastings and Rye, and the hard work she does for her community. She spoke about the partial link between what we are talking about today and what happened during the pandemic. She also talked about SEND provision and, like my hon. Friend the Member for East Worthing and Shoreham, some of the wider factors. The crucial point my hon. Friend the Member for Hastings and Rye made was that having a register would enable us to understand those things better, and enable local authorities to tailor support and ensure they are responding well to the circumstances of different families. I thank her for that contribution.
The hon. Member for Dulwich and West Norwood (Helen Hayes), who spoke for the Opposition, talked about persistent absence, which, as I just said, is a significant issue that we are grappling with. She did not mention the international nature of the increase in absence from school since the pandemic. She also did not mention the progress made since 2010, before the pandemic, including the tightening of the definition of persistent absence in order to raise the bar, which possibly happened shortly before my hon. Friend the Member for East Worthing and Shoreham was in the Department for Education.
It is true that since covid there has been a renewed challenge in multiple countries. I am pleased to say that progress is being made. Absence overall for the 2023-24 autumn term was 6.8%, compared with 7.5% the previous year. The trend is moving in the right direction, but we need it to go further. I ask the hon. Member for Dulwich and West Norwood not to conflate entirely different subjects. By definition, home-educated children cannot be persistently absent from school, because they are not on the school roll. We went through that at the Opposition day debate, which put completely different things together in one composite motion. That does not help provide the clarity we need on the subject, and how such debates play out with the public.
Damian Hinds
If the hon. Lady is able to correct me on that point, I will be delighted to hear from her.
Helen Hayes
I am grateful to the Minister for giving way. “Conflate” is the wrong word, because these issues are linked. For many parents, the causes of persistent absence, which we have talked about—poor mental health, poor SEND support, off-rolling and pressures on families—result in their decision to home educate. Theirs could be the home-educated children about which local authorities know nothing. The issues are linked and we need a comprehensive strategy, including a register of children not in school. That is our position.
Damian Hinds
I suppose I am grateful to the hon. Lady for saying that. If she believes that having a register of children not in school will do something about persistent absence, I am afraid she may have higher expectations than will be delivered.
Helen Hayes
The register would enable intervention on the quality of the education being received by children at home. Knowing who those children are enables local authorities to understand how they are being educated and to make a determination about the quality of that education. That can help local authorities to support some families to return their children to school, where the choice to home educate was not a positive choice to do that and do it well, but was made due to the unacceptable pressure that those families have been under.
Damian Hinds
These are both very important subjects, and there is some linkage at some level, but I do not think that what the hon. Lady just said is a sequitur. We are bearing down on persistent absence, with a support-first approach, to ensure that children get the benefit of being in school as many days as possible. No child can be in school every day throughout their school years—every child will be ill at some point—but there is a huge benefit to being at school. We recognise, of course, that some children are in more difficult circumstances than others. The question of the register of children not in school is a separate matter, though both are important.
I want to return to a couple of things that the hon. Lady mentioned on the Opposition’s proposed, or supposed, strategy on dealing with attendance. While in principle I do not disagree with a number of those things, that is largely because they sound very like Government policy. I do, however, disagree with some of the detail and supposed changes. For example, if we are trying to improve attendance at school, I think it is wrong to focus a breakfast club policy specifically on primary school, because we know that absence is more acute in secondary school. If we target a breakfast club programme to areas where it is needed most, we can have most impact on absence.
On mental health, I believe we might have heard a new spending commitment from the hon. Lady this morning. Previously, when the Opposition have talked about mental health counsellors, it has generally been in respect of secondary schools. I was not sure if she was saying that this was to be in every one of 22,000 schools.
Helen Hayes
I am very happy to clarify our position, which is well publicised. A mental health professional will be based in every secondary school in the country, with mental health support available to every primary school in the country. Perhaps the Minister might say what he is doing in the same area to improve the mental health of our children and young people.
Damian Hinds
I am grateful to the hon. Lady for enlightening me on that subject. She should know that we are investing in creating a network of mental health support teams throughout the country. It is a gradual deployment, as these things always must be, but importantly it includes primary schools as well as secondary schools. Finally, on what the hon. Lady said about Ofsted, I will just say that Ofsted already quite rightly looks at absence.
I want to reiterate that any form of registration of children not in school would not fundamentally alter the status quo when it comes to the parental right to choose home education. Home education is a right, and we are not seeking to change that right. It forms a core part of the English education system, which allows parents choice in how to educate their child. I pay tribute once again to all those parents who make significant sacrifices to provide a suitable education for their child.
I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Meon Valley for bringing this topic to the House today. My colleagues in the Department for Education and I warmly welcome her Bill on the same subject. We look forward to its Second Reading on Friday 15 March, and to working closely with her as she takes it through the House.
Education
Damian Hinds Excerpts(9 months, 2 weeks ago)
Ministerial CorrectionsRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Damian Hinds
We have launched 32 attendance hubs, to reach more than 1 million pupils. And we have expanded our attendance mentor pilot, as my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central (Jo Gideon) rightly mentioned, to reach 15 priority education investment areas.
[Official Report, 2 February 2024, Vol. 744, c. 1175.]
Letter of correction from the Minister for Schools, the right hon. Member for East Hampshire (Damian Hinds):
An error has been identified in my speech on Second Reading of the School Attendance (Duties of Local Authorities and Proprietors of Schools) Bill.
The correct information should have been:
Damian Hinds
We have launched 32 attendance hubs, to reach more than 1 million pupils. And we will be expanding our attendance mentor pilot, as my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central (Jo Gideon) rightly mentioned, to reach 15 priority education investment areas.
Topical Questions
The following is an extract from Education questions on 29 January 2024:
Sir Jeremy Quin (Horsham) (Con)
Educational psychologists are enormously important. What progress are the Government making on their current recruitment drive to increase their number?
Mindfulness in Schools
Damian Hinds Excerpts(9 months, 2 weeks ago)
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The Minister for Schools (Damian Hinds)
It is good to see you in the Chair for today’s debate, Mr Gray. I congratulate the hon. Member for Warrington North (Charlotte Nichols) on bringing this important subject to Westminster Hall today. I thank and commend everybody who has taken part: my hon. Friends the Members for Warrington South (Andy Carter) and for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton), the hon. Members for Westmorland and Lonsdale (Tim Farron) and for Strangford (Jim Shannon), and the hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne North (Catherine McKinnell), who speaks for the Opposition.
It is very important to discuss these issues, especially in the light of the tragic death of Brianna Ghey, who was a constituent of the hon. Member for Warrington North, and the outcome of the murder trial. It is a truly heartbreaking case, and our thoughts are with Brianna’s family and friends. Obviously, no one should be subject to any violence, let alone have their young life cut short in this most unspeakable and unthinkable way.
Schools and colleges should be respectful and tolerant places where bullying is never tolerated. I want to specifically recognise the work of Brianna’s mother to create positive action following her most terrible loss. Her ambition to promote empathy, compassion and resilience through the Peace in Mind campaign is one that we all commend.
There are few things more critical than the happiness of our children. The Government actively explore approaches that could improve young people’s mental health and wellbeing, such as mindfulness interventions. We are, of course, in Children’s Mental Health Week, and yesterday was—this is not exactly the same subject, but there is a lot of commonality, as has been explored again today—Safer Internet Day.
There is evidence of the benefits of mindfulness, and many schools will feel a positive impact on their students from programmes such as the one provided by the Mindfulness in Schools Project, but we should remember that it might not be right for everyone, every school or every individual in a school. Schools should retain flexibility to choose the interventions that suit their pupils and their local context, supported by high-quality evidence and guidance.
To help schools decide what support to put in place, we are offering all state schools and colleges a grant to train a senior mental health lead by next year. Over 14,400 have claimed such a grant so far, including four fifths of the schools in Warrington. The training supports the leads to assess and implement interventions that are suitable for their setting, which can include mindfulness. Our recently launched targeted support toolkit builds on that, providing senior mental health leads with further guidance on evidence-based interventions, again including mindfulness.
In addition, schools can look to the Education Endowment Foundation and to Foundations, formerly known as the Early Intervention Foundation, to review the evidence on the various approaches to support their students. We are funding a large-scale programme—I believe it is one of the biggest ever programmes—of randomised controlled trials of approaches to improving pupil mental wellbeing, improving our understanding of what works and providing new evidence for schools to use in planning their approaches. More than 300 schools have been involved, and the findings will help us evaluate the impact of a variety of interventions on mental health and on wider measures, including wellbeing, behavioural issues and teacher relationships.
The programme includes the INSPIRE trial, which is testing three approaches to improving mental wellbeing in school: daily five-minute mindfulness-based exercises, daily five-minute relaxation exercises and a new curriculum programme for mental wellbeing. I reminded myself earlier today that it was this week in 2019 that I had the opportunity of visiting Hayes School in Bromley, which was taking part in the programme, and where I had the chance to join a classroom-based mindfulness session. The trials have gone on for quite some time, although covid, as with so many other things, took a chunk out of the middle. However, the trials will conclude this Easter, and I want the results to be out as soon as possible—I hope by the autumn.
Our senior lead training also promotes tackling mental health and wellbeing through the curriculum, both directly in health education and by integrating the issue into the wider curriculum. In September 2020, we made health education, including mental health education, compulsory for all pupils in state-funded schools. That guarantees teaching on how to recognise the early signs of mental wellbeing concerns and where and how to seek support and self-care techniques, which again can include mindfulness.
We should remember that wellbeing-promoting behaviours can be encouraged beyond the classroom, and that has come up a number of times in the debate today. In particular, schools can develop their enrichment offers with an eye to NHS England’s “5 steps to mental wellbeing”, which sets out the steps that we can all take to improve our personal wellbeing. Those are, first, connecting with others; secondly, being active; thirdly, learning new skills; fourthly, giving to others; and, of course, fifthly, paying attention to the present moment—something that colleagues present might recognise as mindfulness.
We have spoken a number of times about the general extracurricular, or co-curricular, set of activities and their importance in developing character and resilience, and I could not agree more with colleagues about the importance of everything outside the classroom. That can be about outdoor learning, as the hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale said, or about sporting activities, music or voluntary work—all manner of things that help to give us a sense of purpose.
There is also a range of self-regulation and wellbeing techniques, and mindfulness is one. Seeing my hon. Friend the Member for East Worthing and Shoreham reminded me of a very good product created by West Sussex CAMHS, which I think is called an A to Z of wellbeing techniques for use with primary school children—of course, issues can sometimes develop from quite an early age.
The hon. Member for Strangford and others are right to talk about the particular pressures that young people today face. In many ways, the world they are growing up into is better, with more opportunities than ever before, but there are also new and different pressures that just did not exist when anybody in this Chamber was young. A lot of that is to do with electronica and social media.
Andy Carter
Could the Minister perhaps say a little more about some of the calls made for social media platforms to do more to prevent under-16-year-olds, in particular, from accessing their services? One of the greatest mental health challenges is the incessant presence of a mobile phone and a screen.
Damian Hinds
Indeed, but I do not want to try our Chair’s patience too much by moving too far beyond mindfulness, which is of course the subject of the debate. I have taken a very active interest in these matters for a long time, in my time at the Department for Education and at the Home Office, and otherwise in Parliament, and I think social media companies can do more.
Of course, we have just legislated in the Online Safety Act 2023. Most social media companies stipulate a minimum age of 13, but it is not uncommon for people to find a way around that minimum age. With the Online Safety Act, those companies will have to say how they are going to enforce that minimum age and then deliver on it. They are also going to have to ensure that they are protecting children from harmful content and removing, in good time, content that is illegal and identified as such. That is the legislation, but we do not need to wait for a law to do some of those things. I would say to everybody working in the technology field or in social media, most of whom have families themselves, that we all have a shared responsibility to think about the mental health, wellbeing and true interests of children and young people growing up.
I was just talking about the range of extracurricular activities, and I want to mention the range of support across Government for those, including the national youth guarantee and the enrichment partnerships pilot. We are also encouraging children to spend time in nature and to take in their surroundings, which I think the hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale will welcome. The natural world has so much to offer in terms of grounding us, and we can see the potential of that through our work on the national education nature park, for example.
We have spoken a couple of times, rightly, about wider mental health provision, particularly for children and adolescents. More resourcing has been and is going into CAMHS; the issue is that the demand has also been growing. An investment of up to a further £2.3 billion a year is going into transforming NHS mental health services, including meeting the aim that over 300,000 more children and young people will have been able to access NHS-funded mental health support by March 2024.
A number of things that colleagues have talked about, including mindfulness—the key subject of the debate—and self-regulation techniques, general wellbeing and building up resilience, have an important role in helping to prevent some of that pressure. One wants to make people resilient and resistant to some of the problems that inevitably come our way in life and able, if there are relatively low-level issues, to deal with them before they become bigger. One also wants, as I said, to relieve some of that pressure.
The hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne North rightly mentioned counsellors and mental health professionals in schools. Many schools already provide targeted support to pupils through counsellors, pastoral staff, educational psychologists and other roles. No single intervention works for every pupil; again, I think it is important that settings have the freedom to decide what is the best support in their circumstance and for their cohort of children.
Charlotte Nichols
I want to ask a question about the idea of schools having flexibility. Of course, in general terms, I would welcome that, but is there not a worry that we would end up with a postcode lottery of provision in terms of the mental health support woven through schools? Areas such as Warrington would have fantastic things available for our young people, but children in towns in the surrounding area would still have issues that we could really be stepping in to address.
Damian Hinds
The senior mental health lead training that I talked about is a nationwide offer—I am talking about England, because, as hon. Members know, education is devolved. I was just about to talk about mental health support teams, which will similarly be a nationwide offer. It is a gradual roll-out. I think it is possible to combine having a nationwide approach with tailoring to one’s particular circumstances. We are continuing to roll out the mental health support teams to schools, and also to colleges. They will deliver evidence-based interventions for mild to moderate mental health issues and will support the mental health leads with their whole-school approach. As of April last year, the support teams covered a little more than a third of our schools, with a little more than a third of pupils in the country. That number continues to grow; the coverage should extend to at least half of pupils by March 2025.
The hon. Member for Warrington North rightly mentioned the wellbeing of staff, which is an important subject, and the Government take it very seriously. At the start of this year, we announced £1.5 million of new investment to deliver a three-year mental health and wellbeing support package for school and college leaders. That was in addition to the just over £1 million already invested in the current support package.
More broadly, we have worked in partnership with the education sector and with mental health experts to develop the education staff wellbeing charter, which sets out commitments from my Department, Ofsted and schools and colleges on actions to improve staff wellbeing. In January, we published an update showing the significant progress made on our pledges. I would simply echo what the hon. Member for Warrington said, which is that taking part in mindfulness in certain circumstances can also have a benefit for teachers and leaders in schools.
I am enormously grateful to the hon. Lady for raising the potential of mindfulness in schools—Mr Gray, you have been gracious and generous in allowing us to move into some adjacent but clearly related areas that it is important to discuss—and the Government agree with her that mindfulness is one of the tools that can support wellbeing in school. Our approach of building the evidence base, including through the extensive trials I talked about, and supporting schools to make effective decisions on their provision will ensure that such opportunities are acted on.
School Attendance (Duties of Local Authorities and Proprietors of Schools) Bill
Damian Hinds ExcerptsFriday 2nd February 2024
(9 months, 3 weeks ago)
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The Minister for Schools (Damian Hinds)
Let me first warmly congratulate my right hon. Friend the Member for Chelmsford (Vicky Ford) on her success in the ballot, and on using that success for this purpose. I am delighted that she has chosen school attendance as the subject of her Bill. It is a subject that I know is close to her heart, and one that she has championed with aplomb and with impact. She said towards the end of her remarks that attendance is the key to a child’s future, and I agree. We have often said that reading is the most fundamental thing in school, because if a child cannot read properly, they cannot access the curriculum and nothing else works, but attendance is even more important. Whatever our brilliant teachers are doing in schools, if the children are not there, they cannot benefit.
I thank my hon. Friends and the Opposition spokes-person, the hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne North (Catherine McKinnell), for their contributions. We all recognise the importance of regular attendance not only for children’s attainment, but for their wellbeing and development. There is evidence that some attitudes to absence have changed since the pandemic, with a somewhat greater propensity among some families to keep a child with a minor illness, such as a cough or a cold, at home, whereas prior to the pandemic they would have gone to school. It is worth saying that, before covid, great progress had been made on attendance since 2010, and we are committed to getting back to those levels. They will never be 100%, for obvious reasons—every child will be off school ill at some point, and sadly some children will need to be off for extended periods—but we need to get back to that pre-pandemic level of 95% or above.
I am pleased to confirm that the Government fully support this Bill from my right hon. Friend the Member for Chelmsford. We are exploring all possible avenues to make our attendance guidance statutory, including the use of existing powers. That is important because we want every child to be able to achieve their potential, and attending school regularly is obviously crucial to that. As my right hon. Friend outlined, this Bill will improve the consistency of support available in all parts of England, first, by requiring schools of all types to have and to publicise a school attendance policy and, secondly, by introducing a new general duty on local authorities to seek to improve attendance and reduce absence in their areas.
The Bill will require schools and local authorities to have regard to statutory guidance. In practice, that will see us revising and reissuing our “Working together to improve school attendance” guidance. It is widely supported by schools, trusts and local authorities, and both the Education Committee and the Children’s Commissioner have already called for it to be made statutory. The guidance was introduced in September 2022 and has already started to make a difference. There were 380,000 fewer pupils persistently absent or not attending in 2022-23 than in 2021-22. Overall absence for the autumn term just gone was 6.8%, which is down from 7.5% in autumn 2022. To turn it the other way around, attendance in that term is up, year on year, from 92.5% to 93.2%.
However, while we of course welcome that improvement, there is still further to go to get to those pre-pandemic levels and better, and there are still parts of the country where families do not have access to the right support, as my hon. Friend the Member for Aylesbury (Rob Butler) rightly identified. It is important to legislate to end the postcode lottery so that any family can get the support they need, and doing so will give parents increased clarity and level up standards across schools and local authorities. That is also an important part of this Government’s emphasis on a “support first” approach, meaning that schools and local authorities work together to break down the barriers that can stop a pupil attending.
To support schools and local authorities in meeting those expectations, the Government already have a comprehensive attendance strategy, and this aspect of it is only one part of a much wider whole. We have deployed attendance advisers to support local authorities and a number of trusts. We have created a new data tool, with 88% of state-funded schools signed up. At the system leadership level, we have convened the attendance action alliance to work across sectors to remove barriers to attendance and reduce absence. We have launched 32 attendance hubs, to reach more than 1 million pupils. And we have expanded our attendance mentor pilot, as my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central (Jo Gideon) rightly mentioned, to reach 15 priority education investment areas.
Of course, much wider work is in place as well. More children are now eligible for free school meals as a result of the protections put in place on universal credit transition; £30 million has been spent on breakfast clubs and it is targeted at where it is most needed—where it can have the most effect. I say to the hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne North that that does include secondary schools as well as primary schools. We also have in place the holiday activities and food programme. We are increasing the pupil premium in 2024-25 to £2.9 billion. Of course attendance is one of the great factors and important drivers in narrowing the gap between better-off and more disadvantaged pupils. We are expanding the Supporting Families programme over this spending review period, and addressing attendance at school where there is a problem is a fundamental part of that programme.
My right hon. Friend the Member for Ludlow (Philip Dunne) mentioned the lasting effect, sadly, of the pandemic and the importance of socialisation, and he is absolutely right; we often think of the early years and the effect on the youngest children, but this is actually true throughout a child’s or young person’s development. He particularly mentioned the year 6 to year 7 transition point, which we know is pivotal in so many ways, and a lot of schools are doing some very good work there.
My right hon. Friend specifically asked about mental health and the possibility of an absence code. I understand his motivation and that of others in raising that point. Let me just say that a practicality question is involved. At the moment someone is taking the register, it is not always practical for them to be able to say that something is one particular type of health issue or another, and there is the risk that we would have inaccurate reporting and a misunderstanding of trends as a result. He also mentioned the wider work on mental health. He will know that we are putting forward a grant for every state school to be able to train a senior mental health lead. In addition, the really important wider work on mental health support teams, supporting clusters of schools, primary as well as secondary, continues to grow.
My hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central mentioned not only the mentors programme, but the importance of extra-curricular activity and pastoral care. That is really important and we need always to be saying that this is about not only learning and attainment, but everything else that comes with school. Of course, I join my hon. Friend the Member for Aylesbury in congratulating Aylesbury High School. He was right also to ask about costs for local authorities and for us not to overburden schools. In advance of issuing our existing guidance on attendance, we carried out the comprehensive new burdens assessment, which found that the expectations could be implemented by local authorities without additional funding if they had the average number of staff working on attendance. We are confident that that assessment remains accurate, based on a growing body of evidence since that assessment was published. The evidence shows that where local authorities are delivering the guidance, staffing levels have remained within those predicted levels.
But my hon. Friend the Member for Aylesbury was also right to talk about ensuring that we do not overburden schools themselves. I join him in paying tribute to school leaders, schoolteachers and wider staff for the extraordinary work that we have heard is going on and what they are doing to get children into school. I absolutely agree with him that we need to ensure that we have a proportionate approach that supports the whole system—the schools, local authorities and so on—and works with people in our common endeavour to maximise the benefit that children get from their education. This Bill, if passed, will also update our existing guidance in advance of the new school year to reflect the latest best practice and feedback that we have gathered from the sector, and to make it as easy as possible for schools and local authorities to understand the actions they need to take.
In closing, I reiterate my thanks and appreciation to my right hon. Friend the Member for Chelmsford for bringing this important Bill before the House today. Being in school has never been more valuable, with standards continuing to rise, and this Bill will help to ensure that every young person and their family, whatever their background and wherever they are in the country, can receive the support they need to do just that. I am sure we will hear more from her—and I look forward to that—as the Bill progresses through the House. I thank her again, and I urge hon. Members across the House to support the Bill.